'It's once in a lifetime': Crowds pack Hornell, Dansville parks for solar eclipse

Heavy clouds covered the skies over Hornell for much of Monday afternoon.

But shortly after 3 p.m., as the solar eclipse passing through New York state and the Southern Tier neared its peak, the sun poked through the clouds for the first time in hours and offered a large crowd at Shawmut Park glimpses of the moon moving into its much-anticipated position in front of the sun.

A few minutes later, darkness descended as the sun was hidden from view.

“It’s a once in a lifetime type of experience,” said Hornell resident James Bassage. “That’s what I told my granddaughter when I brought her. This is something you should be a part of because you may not see another one.”

Hornell wasn’t quite in the full path of the eclipse, experiencing about 99% maximum coverage. Dansville did land in totality just a little further north of the Maple City. The village attracted visitors from near and far, drawn to the full eclipse experience.

Eclipse gazers from Philadelphia, Hagerstown, Md. and Reading, Pa. set up in Dansville’s Williams Park, along with travelers from other far-flung locales and students from nearby Alfred University.

About 20 minutes of rain showers between 2 and 3 p.m. sent some people scrambling for their cars, but the rain went away before totality.

Alfred student Dominic Wilcox lamented the cloud cover for his first solar eclipse, noting that “yesterday it was super nice out.”

Still, Wilcox said he wasn't discouraged. He was excited about totality, the moment when the sky would darken as if it was night although it was the middle of the day.

When totality arrived in Dansville at 3:20 p.m., the park was enveloped in complete darkness that lasted just over two minutes. There was a noticeable drop in the temperature and store lights from a nearby plaza blinked on. Several people cheered when the "nighttime" show ended.

Early indications are that the traffic headaches that worried public safety officials didn't materialize, although a long line of vehicles were backed up at the exit of nearby Stony Brook State Park following the event.

The clouds couldn’t keep a big crowd away from Shawmut Park, where over 30 vendors created a festival-like atmosphere.

“It’s a great event and there’s a lot of people. I’m sorry it’s cloudy because there would probably be even more people,” said Bassage. “It’s great to see kids, families, older folks. It’s nice to have a positive, family friendly event where people can come out and enjoy themselves.

“I’ve already run into a lot of people I haven’t seen in awhile. It’s really good for the community.”

The Hornell Public Library distributed thousands of special eclipse glasses in the runup to Monday, with hundreds more given away in the hours before the celestial show. The library was collecting glasses after the event, planning to ship them to South America for a future eclipse.

The library hosted STEM activities for kids and Friends of the Library held fundraisers to support library programs.

“I’m impressed with the number of people who are actually coming up and doing the STEM activities and learning about the eclipse itself,” said Library Director Denise Chilson. “It’s not just that it’s going to get dark. They’re actually learning why.”

Chilson said she spoke with eclipse viewers who traveled to Hornell from the Ithaca area to experience the event at Shawmut Park.

The Veterans One-stop Center was among the groups taking advantage of the event to do community outreach.

“Most of the veterans haven’t heard of the services offered,” said Mike Palmesano, liaison for Assemblywoman Marjorie Byrnes. “We’ve signed up over a dozen people already.”

-- with reporting by Neal Simon.

This article originally appeared on The Evening Tribune: Eclipse draws big crowds to Hornell, Dansville. What they were saying