Preparing for the eclipse

THERMOPOLIS – Updates on solar eclipse preparations in Thermopolis, including establishing an information hotline, were discussed at Monday’s meeting. About two dozen people attended the meeting at Thermopolis Middle School sponsored by the Thermopolis Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce.

Thermopolis Hot Springs Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Meri Ann Rush started the meeting by explaining that she had recently attended a state of Wyoming Chamber conference in Pinedale and that some of the reports that she received was that the population of Wyoming, which is 586,000 would double.

To guestimate how many people Thermopolis can expect Rush used the calculation method Casper used. She took all the hotel rooms, camp sites, vacation rentals in Hot Springs County and multiplied by three. She then took the number of homes in Hot Springs County and multiplied by two, because “everybody who has a home will have a relative coming to stay,” she said. She said that the number accommodation wise came out to 1,335 and resident wise came out to 3,158 for a total of 4,493 people staying the night with additional people coming for the day from nearby counties for the event.

With the addition of so many people concern was raised about law enforcement and the plans to control the traffic. Hot Springs County Emergency Management Coordinator Bill Gordon stated that law enforcement is taking the situation very seriously and that they are expecting big problems, but that they are gearing up for it with additional personnel and a freeze on vacations for the week before and after the event. “The Wyoming Highway Patrol has announced that they are not going to be making substantial changes to the speed limits or to traffic laws. They are simply going to try and direct the people in some sort of orderly fashion. If there are a lot of people and it causes huge problems on the highways, there is nothing basically to stop it. In reality there is no way to stop it. Basically we are going to be at the mercy of the amount of traffic that comes,” he said. One of the main concerns especially in light of what’s been happening lately is the canyon and what problems it could pose all by itself with huge amounts of traffic. Accidents, transport of patients, responding agencies trying to get to accidents, fire, police and ambulance, he added.

As a way to alleviate calls to 911 and the dispatch center, the town is creating a hotline for non-emergency and basic eclipse questions. “We will be having a hotline during this period. We will have one or two people staffing it, I don’t know, it’s still in discussion, but the idea and the concept and the mechanics of the hotline are actual, they are not theoretical. We will be setting them up, I would guess the last week in July. We will actually physically set up the telephones over in the courthouse, probably in my office,” Gordon said. “It will basically be a daytime operation, at night we are going to set it up where we have some automated information where people can push one if you want to know this and push two if you want to know this and we will be back at 8 o’clock in the morning. I’m thinking tentatively, probably we will turn it on about Thursday morning and run it through the weekend and maybe turn it off Tuesday night, we will see,” he added.

Manning the phones will require volunteers and Gordon asked those attending if they would be or knew someone who would be interested in volunteering. He explained that the volunteers would be given training and practice with an emphasis on practicing transferring calls from the hotline over to 911 if needed. Volunteers would have a list of answers to questions beside them and people would be available if someone called in with a question that didn’t make the list.

There will be a couple of phone numbers for the hotline which will be published in the newspaper and in just about every business in town to try and direct the eclipse questions such as where to deposit garbage, accommodations etc. to the hotlines rather than calling the sheriff or dialing 911.

Rush encouraged everyone to check out the chamber website where all the hotels, campsites, vacation rentals and private land rentals for tents and motor homes are listed. Color coded for easy reference red means that a particular place is full and green means that accommodations are available.

“If you are offering private land for rent, I would recommend contacting the chamber so that we can put you on the list. I know that the town and the county, they have waived the permitting during that time because in the county you are supposed to have permitting if you’re renting for less than 30 days. I know you do have to contact the Wyoming Dept. of Revenue because you do have to charge a lodging tax. But I do know that the local permit is being waived during that period of time and on the chamber website we do have the specific times that both are waiving them,” Rush said. “Do let us know because anybody who is looking for accommodations, we are referring them to the site. If you do that and fill up, do make sure to contact us also,” she added.

Rush gave advice on how to prepare yourself for the event, “Make sure that your vehicle is gassed up, you have food and prescriptions filled up. That’s one thing that everyone can do for themselves to make the weekend go a little smoother.”