At the beginning of 2017, an event specialist for Hopkinsville, Ky. spoke at a conference of scientists about hosting solar eclipse chasers that summer in her small city.
“I said 50,000 people were estimated,” Brooke Jung recalled recently. “People came up to me and said: ‘you need to double that estimate.’”
The scientists were right.
Hopkinsville, near the Tennessee border, had changed its name temporarily to “Eclipseville” because it fell in the path of total darkness, offering a full 2 minutes and 40 seconds of total solar eclipse viewing. More than 116,000 visitors came to witness the Aug. 21, 2017, happening.
“You don’t choose to be in the path of totality,” said Carter Hendricks, Hopkinsville’s mayor when droves of people from 48 states and 28 countries convened in his community. “The best thing you can do is be prepared for what you can.”
If event planners, hotel bookings and history point the way, the Adirondack Park needs plenty of preparation.
Thousands may turn up April 8 for what
