Ohio Setting Aside $1M for Solar Eclipse Costs

One of the biggest celestial events of 2024 is set to be an April 8 solar eclipse. One of the best viewing spots? Ohio. To that end, USA Today reports the state has earmarked $1 million to cover safety and security costs during the event. Cities like Cleveland, Dayton, and Akron fall within the 124-mile-wide path of totality, and millions of Americans could stream in via car—meaning more accidents are likely. A rep for the Ohio Emergency Management Agency tells Cleveland.com the $1 million pool will be used to reimburse cities and towns for emergency management/first responders costs related to the eclipse. Meanwhile, some individual Ohio locations are already looking at how to handle the day.

As WKYC reported in January, Lorain County officials recommended closing schools on April 8, when the county’s population is expected to temporarily bloom from 312,000 to nearly 1 million people. Lorain’s EMA director wrote in a letter to the school system that it expects a “mass egress of visitors immediately after the eclipse concludes” around 3:10pm, when school traffic can be high. She went on to point out that there is precedent for such concerns: The August 2017 eclipse caused huge traffic problems in key viewing areas.

As Mashable noted at the time, Google Maps revealed multiple major traffic snags in states along the path, from Oregon all the way to North Carolina. Anyone who ends up trapped in eclipse-viewing traffic in April—NASA says that path will stretch from Texas to Maine in the continental US—can breathe a sigh of relief once they’re home, however. The next one viewable from the lower 48 won’t be until August 2044. (Read more solar eclipse stories.)