One year later, Madras remembers the eclipse

Just a year ago, the path of the solar eclipse crossed over Central Oregon. Totality happened right over Madras, among other locations.

Around 10:18 a.m. on Aug. 21, 2017, the moon completely covered the sun and the skies went dark in Madras.

For months and even years before the date, volunteers and city officials were planning different events, hotels and campgrounds were booked, and emergency management teams were training for the best- and worst-case scenarios.

However, for many businesses, eclipse day and those leading up to it were not as busy as expected.

Blanca Reynoso, the owner of Reynoso Jewelry, Shoes, and Clothing in Madras, said sales stayed fairly steady during the eclipse, but the number of people in town was shocking.

“During that week, it started getting really chaotic, because everyone thought ‘Whoa, we’re just going to be overwhelmed with people, we aren’t going to be able to go anywhere, or do anything,” Reynoso said Tuesday.

“But I think we were just a little over-excited,” Reynoso said. “You couldn’t even drive through town that day or the day before or the day after, it was just too many people.”

City of Madras Communications Specialist Lysa Vattimo said tens of thousands of visitors were all over Madras. In February, the city sent a survey to residents, asking what they want to see in Madras. Vattimo said many of the answers reflected the energy that existed in the town during the eclipse time.

“Since then, we have had at least a half-dozen new businesses pop up in downtown,” Vattimo said. “There has been a lot of emphasis on the downtown corridor for economic boom, so there are some new restaurants and new businesses, retail businesses, and we are seeing a vitalization going on.”

Lowell Observatory astronomer Gerard van Belle was in Madras during the eclipse. He said a couple of solar eclipses will happen in South America in the next two years. He reflected on the amount of interest people showed in Madras about how an eclipse functions.

“It really ranged from the amount of exposure people had had to that, ranging from small kids who were asking questions like, ‘Is the moon dangerous?’ And then people who were obviously well-read on these sorts of things, talking about ‘Well, what are the sorts of things we are going to discover about the sun here?'” van Belle said. “People knowing about how there were different layers from the photosphere of the sun, where the light comes off the sun, to the corona that sits above that.”