Ignas Barauskas almost missed it.
He bought plane tickets from his home in Lithuania to the United States about a month ago. After a series of flight delays, he landed in Dallas around midnight, ready for a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse.
“I probably wouldn’t have come to Dallas if it wasn’t for the total solar eclipse,” Barauskas said. “It looks like it’s going to be a big event, the sun hiding during the day.”
He took public transportation Monday morning — because all rental cars in the city had been booked for months — to Dallas’ White Rock Lake, arriving moments before the partial eclipse began. All morning he and millions of other umbraphiles, or eclipse chasers, worried about the gloomy forecast of thick clouds.
But then, just before the total eclipse began, the clouds parted. The view of the sun’s brilliant corona left the city in pitch darkness for as much as four minutes.
“Everybody was screaming,” Barauskas said. “Like a concert.”
Barauskas was among the millions who traveled Monday to the path of totality that stretched from western Mexico to Newfoundland – much of it under lingering cloudy skies.
The Dallas-Fort Worth region was the largest metropolitan area in the path of totality for Monday’s total solar eclipse, which made north Texas an important destination and creates potential headaches for local residents. The overcast weather left some last-minute scrambling to change plans and head for clearer skies, but for much of North Texas, totality itself was clear.
“Better than all expectations,” Barauskas said.
A small town is getting ready
Some early estimates suggested that more than a million visitors would travel to Texas for the eclipse. The state banned oversized vehicles on highways in the eclipse’s path all Monday. Several counties along the way have issued disaster declarations to free up resources for additional law enforcement and other emergency services.
Ennis, a small town 35 miles (56 km) south of Dallas with about 23,000 residents, sits right on the eclipse’s center line. City officials said they expected as many as 150,000 visitors for the celestial event, and doubled the number of ambulances and emergency workers on standby.
City Manager Marty Nelson said Ennis began planning for the event about two years ago, when City Hall began getting calls from NASA scientists and other experts warning them about the attention it was about to receive.
“I’ve seen a blackout before, it was a little overwhelming,” said Ashley Colunga, the city’s marketing and communications director. “We started really digging into the research, and we’re like, oh, OK, this is not your everyday partial eclipse. This is something out of the ordinary.”
“Oh, and by the way, your little town happens to be right on the center line,” Nelson said.
Spring for Ennis usually means another big event — a wildflower bloom of the state’s iconic bluebells that brings in thousands of day trippers and landscape photographers. The bluecaps are currently in peak bloom, which does a double whammy for tourism and traffic.
“April is a crazy busy and great month with the bluebonnet trails, opening our local farmers market, then we have our bluebonnet festival,” Nelson said. “And now, here comes the total solar eclipse and maybe 100,000 extra people.”
An opportunity to educate in the midst of wonder
While others in North Texas were slow to realize the potential disruptions of the total solar eclipse, the researchers at Dallas’ Perot Museum of Nature and Science have been preparing since 2019.
“When we booked hotel rooms two years ago, people thought we were crazy,” said Linda Silver, the museum’s chief executive. The Perot’s ticket blackout event sold out last year, and the museum expected about 7,000 people to show up Monday, along with another 35,000 at a nearby park.
Silver said the museum has ordered 1 million eclipse glasses, and has distributed them to area schools, community centers and retirement homes in recent weeks. The museum, with help from Carnegie Science, flew in about 30 astronomers – many of them bilingual – to help with educational presentations and to answer questions about the once-in-a-lifetime event.
“This is an opportunity for everyone to participate in science,” Silver said. “You don’t often get that aha! moment.”
Caitlin Ray, an 11th grade student from Houston, was on a campus visit at Southern Methodist University on Monday, just in time for totality. On campus, students and families from the surrounding neighborhoods filled the campus’s main square to stare skyward. Ray said she hopes to study astronomy, and was excited about the scientific possibilities the eclipse offers.
“I’m especially excited to see the corona and see if it’s going to be circular,” Ray said. “If it is, that means there’s a lot of solar activity, and there’s a lot of research that can come from that.”
Clouds blocked the sun for much of the partial eclipse, but — as elsewhere in North Texas — parted just before totality. Along with oohs and aahs, people cheered and shouted God Bless America.
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“It was one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen,” said Nikhil Kathuria, an SMU junior studying finance.
Only a few area school districts, including Ennis, closed their campuses Monday, but most said they were planning eclipse-themed lessons for the day. In Arlington, between Dallas and Fort Worth, classes were going on as usual, but that didn’t stop the Williams family from taking the day off.
Kendarias, 16, Genyria, 16, and Genyiah, 10, claimed their spot at an outdoor amphitheater hours before the eclipse was set to begin.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Kendarias said. “So what happens to the birds that are in the sky?”
During a brief break in the clouds, many of the people around cheered. It wasn’t clear how long the sun would stay, but the Williamses weren’t worried.
“It’s the first time for everybody,” Kendarias said.
“Just waiting for a chance to experience it for yourself,” Genyria said.
At the nearby University of Texas at Arlington, home to one of the three largest planetariums in the state, McKenna Dowd had a backup plan in case the clouds made the eclipse impossible. Dowd is a program coordinator at the planetarium and has programmed a projection to replicate the daytime sky just outside — without clouds.
“It’s the next best thing,” Dowd said. “Hopefully the clouds will clear. I try not to think about it.”
She said her team had been planning a “solar braze” for the eclipse for more than a year. Outside, UTA scientists set up telescopes and people passed out eclipse glasses and Moon Pie desserts. Regardless of the weather, Dowd said, it was a chance for the community to share a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“We all share the same stars, the same sun, the same moon. We can share that community,” Dowd said. “No matter what it becomes today.”
Gambling on the weather – and winning
Looking outside on Monday morning, Eric Rude was concerned that he would have to find a new place to watch the celestial show.
He traveled nearly 1,400 miles (2,250 km) from his home in Pocatello, Idaho, to see totality in rural Greenville, Texas. With cloud cover forecast for most of Texas, Rude wondered if he should get in the car and start driving for friendlier skies.
“I’m just going to be as flexible as I can,” Rude said. “I can’t wait to see it again.”
Rude teaches high school biology in Pocatello. As a child, he read issues of National Geographic, from which he learned about total solar eclipses and hoped that one day he would experience one. In 2017, his hometown was at 98% of the total for the last US eclipse. He drove the 50 miles north to see the total solar eclipse.
“I was just so touched by it,” Rude said. “Seeing totality is so different than even 99%.”
He and his wife – who missed the last eclipse – decided to stay for a public celebration in Greenville. Clouds were thicker than in Dallas, but for a portion of the whole it cleared enough to see.
“It was amazing,” Rude said. “It’s hard to put into words.”
