It’s rare for a total solar eclipse to hit the same place twice — once every 366 years on average. In 2019, this happened in the Pacific Ocean, far west of the coast of Chile. With any luck, the next one will span an area of about 10,000 square miles that includes parts of southern Illinois, southeastern Missouri, and western Kentucky.
People in these areas will experience the April 8 eclipse about seven years after they were near the middle of the path of the “Great American Eclipse.”
For that total eclipse, which occurred on August 21, 2017, Southern Illinois University sold its football stadium to the city of Carbondale.
“We had people screaming,” said Bob Baer, director of the university’s observing astronomy program. “But unlike a football game, you had everyone screaming for the same thing.”
The college town, population nearly 22,000, was one of the most popular hot spots in the Midwest for the 2017 eclipse. Now, Carbondale and its neighbors are bracing for another sunless day. While cities in the region averaged about two and a half minutes of total darkness in 2017, this time they will experience about four minutes of totality. The preparation and hype has also increased.
Mr. Baer first heard that Carbondale, five hours south of Chicago, was at the crossroads of two solar eclipses nearly a decade before the 2017 event. But its significance didn’t take long to become apparent until 2014, when an astronomer from the National Solar Observatory has arrived.
“As soon as I found out, I fell out of my chair,” Mr. Baer said, though he struggled to convince anyone else. “When I start talking to people about the eclipse, their eyes light up. I would lose them in the first 20 seconds.”
That began to change as August 2017 approached. Carbondale, which had been planning that eclipse for three years, welcomed about 14,000 people. Clouds blocked much of the view that day, but the shared experience struck a chord with people nonetheless. The excitement from that event continues to resonate seven years later.
“The atmosphere is still pretty electric here,” Mr. Baer said. “A lot of anticipation.”
Not everyone was as prepared as Carbondale in 2017. Seventy miles away, city officials in Paducah, Ky., were surprised by the number of visitors they had.
“We had no idea what to expect,” said Angela Schade, downtown development specialist with Paducah’s planning department. He remembers locals renting out their yards to campers in an effort to make room for everyone coming for the eclipse. Mrs. Schade watched the spectacle from the parking lot at work but did not fully understand what she was experiencing.
This year, Paducah is hosting one road show where educators will teach people the science of eclipses. The National Quilt Museum — Paducah’s claim to fame — will host one exhibition featuring the work of Karen Nyberg, a retired NASA astronaut who makes space-themed quilts.
Ms. Schade also makes sure that Paducah’s street lights don’t automatically turn on when the sun disappears.
Paducah wasn’t the only crossroads town to be overwhelmed in 2017. In Makanda, Ill., a village of fewer than 600 residents, a surge of 12,000 people turned out to view the eclipse.
“We were all hands on deck,” said Debbie Dunn, the festival’s event coordinator there. The city, which was speechless in the middle of the eclipse’s path, experienced the longest duration of totality. An artist draw a neon orange line across town — and through his own studio — to mark the center line of the moon’s shadow.
Makanda will not be the area of greatest totality again in April – it will be near Torreón, Mexico. But according to Ms Dunn, interest in the eclipse appears to be greater than it was in 2017.
“All of our neighboring communities have all these things planned,” he said, adding that last time Carbondale was the only place in southern Illinois to do something big.
Events aren’t limited to the day of the eclipse — communities are planning celebrations for the weekend before and the afternoon after totality. Part of this is strategic: Makanda is hosting a dance on the night of April 8, for example, in hopes of easing the kind of post-eclipse traffic jams that paralyzed the city in 2017.
Pat Hunt, running Apple Creek Vineyard & Winery with her family in Friedheim, Mo., is hosting a weekend of live music and food.
Ms Hunt described the experience at her vineyard in 2017 as chaotic, mainly because no one knew how many people would show up. “We just had some nightmares the first time,” he said. “We weren’t as prepared as we should have been.”
This time, they’re selling tickets to check visitor arrival and adding 10 employees to help on the day of the eclipse, many of whom focus on traffic and parking.
College towns appeared to be better prepared in 2017. “We weren’t caught off guard,” said Bruce Skinner, chairman of the eclipse committee at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau. In 2017, the event coincided with the first day of classes, so the university included it in the orientation activities.
On April 8th, classes will be canceled for a school-wide party. Many students will assist NASA-sponsored research projects.
After that, by 2045 a total solar eclipse will come anywhere near this area with the luck of seeing two in seven years.
“For many of the people who are going to see it, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime event,” Dr. Skinner said. But for those caught at the crossroads, “it will be a twice-in-a-lifetime thing.”