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Residents of the only Michigan town in the path of solar eclipse totality on April 8th, Luna Pier, are begging their mayor to stop it from happening.
“I’ve been told that I need to stop this eclipse and I do not have the authority to do that. So yes, people are really concerned. But we’re just trying to prepare them,” James Gardner, mayor of Luna Pier, told Bridge Michigan.
Luna Pier residents biggest concern with the total solar eclipse appears to be the influx of visitors and the related traffic it will cause in the area.
That worry is not without merit. There will almost assuredly be more fatal accidents than normal during the eclipse.
“We found a significant increase in traffic risk in the U.S. around the time of the total eclipse, averaging to one extra vehicle crash every 25 minutes and one extra crash fatality every 95 minutes,” Dr. Donald Redelmeier, professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, said about a recent study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Luna Pier, which has a population of just over 1,300, will see the police department and the city use city-owned property and work with business owners to create additional parking for viewing the eclipse.
“We do have a marina in our city that’s not technically open yet because the season hasn’t started, but we’re trying to convey to (the owner) that it might be good for him to open his doors,” James VanDeraa, Luna Pier police chief, said.
“We normally have one officer working per day or one officer per shift,” VanDeraa added. “That day, now, I have seven scheduled.
“People have stopped along the freeway just to watch the eclipse. So, if that does happen, which I don’t believe that will happen, there’s nothing we can really do about just civilization stopping to watch.”
John Wall, the administrative commander for the Monroe police department, located just a few miles north of Luna Pier, has a slightly different take.
“I would hope that people would not stop on the freeway to view [the eclipse],” said Wall. “With that kind of a traffic backup, it would take hours for traffic to get moving again.”
Then again, if the total solar eclipse breaks the world’s simulation, as some conspiracy theorists believe, traffic won’t be a problem at all.