A crowd starts to gather Monday morning on Arlington Lawn, which is the site of numerous activities leading up to a total solar eclipse in the afternoon. (The Sentinel-Record/Hailey Grillo)UPDATE
Visitors from all 50 states, including Hawaii and Alaska, have registered at the city's Visitor Center in downtown Hot Springs in advance of today's total solar eclipse, the CEO of Visit Hot Springs said Monday.
As of Sunday afternoon, around 1,200 people had gone through the center, located in Hill Wheatley Plaza, Visit Hot Springs CEO Steve Arrison said, and another 1,000 people are expected to come through the center on Monday.
Parking has been the biggest issue in downtown Hot Springs so far, Hot Springs police Sgt. Joey Williams said Monday.
"People just parking wherever they want. We don't like issuing citations, but we have had to address several issues," Williams said.
Hot Springs police were busy for several hours Sunday evening dealing with a traffic jam in the area of Fountain Street and Central Avenue caused by multiple motorists driving over Hot Springs Mountain.
"The mountain became clogged and nothing was moving so we had to shut traffic off and work it by hand to clear traffic off the mountain," Williams said.
Some of the motorists had a wait of 50 minutes to an hour to get off the mountain, he said.
Williams said Monday morning that so far "it's been decent" as far as traffic issues, but "we hear lots of people are coming from the south of us to avoid the weather."
The biggest advice he could offer motorists today is "people just need to be patient."
Hot Springs National Park Ranger Lee Ricci demonstrates UV Beads Monday morning on Arlington Lawn. Though beads appear clear in the shade, upon entering the sunlight they turn bright shades of blue, purple, and pink. The demonstration is part of the activities leading up to a total solar eclipse in the afternoon. (The Sentinel-Record/Hailey Grillo)
Josie McClanahan, left, and Clayton Catlett are in Hot Springs from St. Louis, Missouri. They chose Hot Springs to be able to not only view the eclipse, but visit a national park. “It kills two birds with one stone,” Catlett said. “I’m most excited to use this new equipment we have expanded on. I was at the 2017 eclipse, but I only had an iPhone. I’m ready to get a good shot this time,” he added. (The Sentinel-Record/Hailey Grillo)ORIGINAL ARTICLE
While weather forecasts have fluctuated multiple times over the past week leading up to today's total solar eclipse, one thing is certain: the skies will darken from around 12:32 p.m. to 3:10 p.m. today.
According to Hot Springs National Park's website, Arkansas has only been in the path of totality for an eclipse two other times in history -- in 1834 and in 1918. The next total solar eclipse in the state will be in 2045.
Hot Springs National Park is one of only two official national parks in the path of totality today.
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There are three official viewing locations within the national park. According to Hot Springs National Park Interpretation Program Manager Ashley Waymouth, each location will have accessibility devices as well as scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"We'll have this device called a LightSound, which transmits light into a sound, so that way, you can actually listen to the eclipse happening," she said.
"So as it gets darker the pitch changes. We'll have solar viewers. We'll have a solar tent.
"That way, if you have mobility limitations or if you can't quite get your glasses on right and you want to be safe looking at the sun, we'll have these 10-by-10 tents you can stand under, or roll under and look up at the sun through," she said.
"And then we'll just have some eclipse journals, so you can journal what the eclipse looks like, through the different phases of the eclipse. And just a few other things like that. So we're creating these much more multi-sensory experiential ways to see, view, feel and really be in the eclipse."
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The three official sites are Arlington Lawn at the north end of Bathhouse Row, the top of West Mountain and the parking lot of the Hot Springs Mountain Tower. Shuttles will be available for trips to the mountain locations, as Hot Springs Mountain Drive and West Mountain Drive will both be closed to vehicles.
Shuttle stops for West Mountain will be at the trailheads near West Mountain Drive on Whittington Avenue and Prospect Avenue, the shelter at West Mountain Summit Drive and at the Summit Drive loop.
Stops for Hot Springs and North mountains will be at the Happy Hollow jug fountain on Fountain Street, at the shelter on North Mountain Drive near the tower and at the shelter at the intersection of North Mountain Drive and Fountain Street.
Waymouth said last week the plans will remain unchanged unless there is severe weather.
"We're definitely going to do everything that we plan on doing," she said. "We're going to do everything we can to make sure that we keep our current operation in place. Of course, if there's hellacious storms with lightning, then we'd obviously have to pivot."
The Fordyce Bath House will close around 1:30 p.m. and reopen around 2 p.m., Waymouth said, to allow rangers and volunteers to experience the eclipse.
According to NASA's eclipse website, during today's total solar eclipse, the moon's umbral shadow will fly across North America, from Mazatlán on the Pacific coast of Mexico to eastern Canada's island of Newfoundland, in a little less than two hours. The path of this shadow, the path of totality, is where observers will see the moon completely cover the sun for up to four and a half minutes.
Within the United States, the path touches 15 states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, the extreme northwest corner of Tennessee, Illinois, far western Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, the extreme southeast corner of Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
Kristen Weaver, NASA's deputy coordinator of the Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment Observer program, said last week that eye protection is key to enjoying the eclipse.
"You do need those during the partial phases of the eclipse," she said. "Make sure that you have those special eclipse classes and not regular sunglasses or other sorts of things during the partial phases of the eclipse. And then for those few minutes of totality you get to take those glasses off, look up at the corona and enjoy that and then put them back on. There are also plenty of indirect ways to observe the eclipse during the times."
Weaver encouraged people to download an app, such as Totality by Big Kid Science, with a timer that alerts when totality is nearing its end.
"During totality, it is completely safe to look at the sun with your bare eyes," she said. "I think the key is the timing of it, and there are some apps that can like audibly alert you when it's time to put the glasses back on. But I think one signal is you'll see the Bailey's Beads or the diamond ring that are a signal of bright spots around ... and once you start to see that, that's when you want to put your glasses back on."
If clouds completely obscure the sky, there will still be opportunities to view the eclipse. NASA will be livestreaming video of the eclipse from multiple locations across the country that will be available on NASA TV or the NASA.gov website.