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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 22, 2017)
NATION/WORLD Tuesday, August 22, 2017 East Oregonian Page 7A Outside totality, the view is worth staying home By JADE MCDOWELL and ANTONIO SIERRA East Oregonian There were plenty of oohs and aahs at Butte Park on Monday morning as young and old gathered to watch the solar eclipse. Some eclipse-watchers set up chairs in the back of pickup trucks, while others spread out picnic blankets or hiked up to the top of the Butte. There was even a group doing yoga under the slowly disappearing sun. Vivian Sullivan, Alexis Sullivan and Sergio Rangel were hurrying down the Butte trail about 15 minutes before the eclipse’s peak. “We’ve got to go back and get our lawn chairs. We were just too excited,” Vivian said, laughing. Alexis was busy viewing the eclipse’s path through her protective eclipse glasses, and noted that she was surprised the eclipse wasn’t more obvious to anyone walking around without the special eye gear. “I thought you would actually be able to see it just looking,” she said. Not everyone at Butte Park was a local. While many out-of-state travelers headed farther south to the path of totality, Lisa Cochrane and Sandy De La Rosa were in Hermiston from Yakima. “We wanted to get as close to totality as we could without fighting all the traffic,” Cochrane said. The women stayed at the new Holiday Inn Express — a hotel they said Hermiston should be proud of — and then grabbed their lawn chairs and headed out. “We found this beautiful park and settled down,” De La Rosa said. She said the whole event was giving her flashbacks to watching Oregon’s last solar eclipse when she was in sixth grade. Traffic troubles Monday afternoon Umatilla County caught some of the post-eclipse traffic jams that had been predicted. Traffic backed up for several miles on Inter- state 82 near Hermiston and Umatilla, made worse by a bottleneck on the bridge over the Columbia River, which is down to one lane of traffic due to construc- tion. Out of concern for safety as vehicles attempted to merge into that single, non-stop lane of traffic moving onto the bridge, the Oregon Department of Transportation closed the bridge’s westbound on-ramp at Umatilla off of Highway 730 for a few hours. The bridge remained gridlocked into the evening. “It’s hazardous to get on and off there,” ODOT spokesman Tom Strandberg said. ODOT also urged drivers to avoid traveling on Highway 395 north- bound from Long Creek to Pendleton, as the 209 interchange in Pendleton became clogged in the early afternoon. To alleviate traffic on those highways, a detour Oregon State Police via AP This Saturday photo shows the crowd at the Big Summit Eclipse 2017 event near Prineville. “I felt close to God.” — Maxine Patterson, McKay Estates resident Photo courtesy of McKay Estates Assisted living home residents watch the eclipse at McKay Estates in Pendleton Monday. for car traffic was placed at the intersection of McKay Drive and Highway 395 to Tutuilla Road to help relieve congestion on Southgate in Pendleton. Pendleton’s view The review for Monday’s solar eclipse from Pendle- ton’s McKay Estates were unanimous. “Once-in-a-lifetime” and “unforgettable” were just some of the descriptors some of the assisted living home residents used to characterize the phenom- enon. McKay Estates took the residents outside and supplied them with eclipse glasses. Shirley Sagrero recalled the sensation of putting on the protective spectacles and peering at the partial- ly-obstructed sun for the first time. “It looked like a banana,” she said. For others, looking into the sky and seeing the rare occurrence felt like a reli- gious experience. “I felt close to God,” Maxine Patterson said. This isn’t the first time Oregon’s been under the shadow of a high-profile eclipse. In 1979, a total eclipse worked its way through Oregon and eventually passed over Idaho, Montana and North Dakota before moving north into Canada. Unlike this year, the path of totality went right over Pendleton, although according to reports at the time, cloud coverage obscured views of the eclipse for many ground- bound viewers. While some McKay Estates residents were living in other parts of the country at the time, others remembered the previous eclipse’s local effects. Wiley Cook recalled working for Umatilla County in 1979. On the day of the eclipse, he remem- bered having to turn the headlights on as he hauled rock to be used as gravel for roads. “It’s like a moon in reverse,” he said of the eclipse. ——— Contact Jade McDowell at jmcdowell@eastorego- nian.com or 541-564-4536. Contact Antonio Sierra at asierra@eastoregonian. com or 541-966-0836. ECLIPSE: Next U.S. total solar eclipse is 2024 Continued from 1A said with a smile. “But we wanted to come prepared.” A number of visitors trav- eled not just cross-country, but across an ocean to see the uniquely North American event. Bart Verbrugge and his wife, Véronique, came all the way from their native Holland with their two chil- dren, Isabel, 11, and Jurien, 9. Bart Verbrugge said he has witnessed two other solar eclipses in his life — one in northern France and the other in Zambia, Africa. But he wanted to be able to share the experience with his kids, so they flew together to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada about three weeks ago for vaca- tion and made their way to John Day by Friday. “We wanted to show the kids this awesome experi- ence,” he said. “I just want to share with them this magical moment.” Bernd Schatzman also flew in to the U.S. from Germany, where he met ROCK ‘N ROLL TOOL SALE EVENT MONDAY, AUGUST 28, 2017 EVENT HOURS: 10AM-4PM HERMISTON AUTO PARTS 200 S. 1ST PL, HERMISTON, OR 97838 • 541-567-5569 PRICING ALSO GOOD AT: 901 6TH ST, UMATILLA, OR 97882 210 S. MAIN ST., BOARDMAN, OR 97818 VIP INVITATION Listen everyone, have you heard? Ronda Morley’s last day of work is drawing near. I’ve been told that it’s August 31st! Hey Everybody, stand up and cheer, Join her in hoisting a retirement beer! Join us today! Apply Online: Text for more info: friends in Los Angeles before coming up to the path of totality together. The feeling of watching an eclipse is incomparable, he said. “It’s like some special kind of gray darkness,” Schatzman explained. “At the same time, the sun gets this silvery kind of shine.” After totality, some at the industrial park decided to stay while others hit the road right away. Worries of severe traffic backups were perhaps overblown, according to Tom Strand- berg with the Oregon Department of Transporta- tion, who said only minor delays were reported along highways 395 and 26. “It’s actually been a lot calmer than we antic- ipated,” he said. “People seem to be behaving, for the most part.” The United States will not experience another total solar eclipse until 2024, and Oregon will not see another until 2108, when one is expected to graze along the coast. Congratulations for being with FedEx for 26 years!
