Photo from NASA’s eclipse map This image from NASA shows the path of the total solar eclipse that will occur on April 8. Local public safety officials are planning for the crowds that may descend on the region for that event.

Much of the discussion about safety and the upcoming total solar eclipse has focused on the importance of people not staring directly at the sun.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to come to the region for the eclipse, which won’t occur again in the contiguous United States for another 20 years.

Totality will last just under four minutes in places like Erie and Buffalo on Monday, April 8, beginning shortly after 3:15 p.m.

Totality in Warren will be 47 seconds, according to Eclipse2024.com.

While it won’t be clear until the day of the eclipse, public safety officials are planning for those possible crowds.

“Traffic is our number one concern right now,” Warren County Public Safety Director Ken McCorrison said.

He told the Council of Governments that he has held meetings with local police and fire chiefs as well as municipal emergency management coordinators as well as participating in regional and state-wide planning conference calls.

Some locations are encouraging people to stay at home and off the roads during the eclipse.

McCorrison said he’s not making a similar recommendation in Warren County “because we don’t know what we don’t know.”

He said that officials have been reviewing after-action reports from prior eclipses and putting plans in place, including the operation of an emergency operations center which will be staffed “preemptively” that will also be linked to similar centers in Erie and Chautauqua counties to ensure a steady flow of information if needed.

According to the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the path of the eclipse will include four state parks – Presque Isle, Erie Bluffs, Pymatuning and Maurice K. Goddard and will cut through counties including Erie, Crawford, Warren and Mercer.

“On the day of the eclipse, crowds are expected, especially in the northwest, and parks may have to close if they reach capacity,” according to DCNR.

State officials are encouraging those looking to view the eclipse at parks to come early and state late, expecting traffic delays and planning for alternate locations if maximum capacity is reached.

For local emergency planners, the concern is “more after the eclipse than before,” McCorrison said.

“We need to keep our main traffic corridors open,” he said. “In Erie County – Presque Isle – a concern would be (we are) expecting these large numbers in surrounding counties. As people try to get there, things really slow down or bottleneck.

“Our concern is those people may end up here,” he said. “There’s no signup sheet for the eclipse.”

NASA forecasts in Erie show that a partial eclipse will start at 2:02 p.m. with totality beginning at 3:16 p.m.

Totality will last just four minutes.

From there, the partial eclipse will end at 4:30 p.m.

Forecasts for Buffalo are two minutes behind that for Erie.

“The majority of the hotels are completely full,” McCorrison said. “Campgrounds are full. They’ve had issues in other places (when eclipses occurred). We’re working through them here.”