Clouds be darned, eclipse awes and entertains spectators that witness the event

By Joanne Beck
Apr 9, 2024, 8:00am

total eclipse elba 2024 — *During the period of totality, Genesee County was in a night-like darkness, including in Elba, where community members gathered at Elba Central School to experience the event together.*
*Photo by Howard Owens.*

There seemed to be mixed reactions to Monday’s big event as those few minutes passed — depending on where you were — around 3:20 p.m. debuting this area’s total solar eclipse under gray cloud cover.

Social media posts varied from exclamations of having witnessed the best thing ever and feeling awed by the eerie cloak of darkness that descended and lifted as if someone dimmed the light switch and ever so gently rolled it back up.

Still others heaved with palpable sighs of disappointment after all of these past weeks and months of education, promotion and preparation for what was to come due to those nasty clouds that arrived and settled in for a stay.

Locals that ventured out to one of the many gathering spots in Genesee County, or others that drove in from out of state, such as John King, seemed to glean some good out of the day no matter how mired it was in foul weather.

King, all packed up with his recording equipment, came from Gettysburg, Pa. because Batavia “was the closest to me that was in the path,” he said.

He traveled to Tennessee for the partial eclipse in 2017 and, even though he considers himself “a complete amateur,” is prepared with a mount for his telescope and cameras to track the sun, he said.

Despite the clouds, he wasn’t disappointed and, in fact, had come to expect them from experience.

“I went to the 2017 eclipse in Tennessee, and it was a perfect, beautiful day with not a cloud in the sky. And we went to the Watts Bar Nuclear Facility, which is on the Tennessee River. It released a cloud into the sky out of the smokestack that completely blocked my view, even though there was not a cloud anywhere in the sky. I did not get to see the eclipse there either,” King said. “So at least this time, when I came here, I expected that the clouds were going to be like this, and I probably wouldn't get any pictures. But this is my second one that I've brought nothing back.”

Did you think about going somewhere else when you heard what the weather would be like here?
“I looked from Indianapolis to here, and they all said about 90 percent cloud cover,” he said. “We’d already reserved the rooms. I said, what the heck, it's still an event, it still turns dark, you still get to see it. And it only happens, you know, every five, six years.”

He was “amazed” at how little traffic he encountered on his way here compared to Tennessee in 2017.

“Every road around there for 60 miles, every shoulder was covered with cars that had pulled over and parked, and it took me 16 hours instead of eight hours to get home because the traffic was so bad,” he said. “And we cruised up here in normal time, five hours.

“I think the weather, people just said it's just not worth it to travel that distance, and it's gonna be cloud-covered. I was committed, though, just for the heck of it. I'm coming,” he said, sharing that his wife’s daughter stayed put and had a much different view. “My wife, she FaceTimed her daughter who's in Columbia, Maryland, and they have scattered clouds, so they saw it perfectly.”

On the other hand, Tom Jones of Brigantine, New Jersey, drove quite a few hours to get here, he said. He paused when asked if it was worth it.

“Seeing nighttime in the middle of the afternoon was a freak. I’ve never seen that. That was an experience,” he said. “And I brought everything in preparation: my Corona beer, my bottle of champagne, my cereal box viewers. I even brought the little index card thing. Let down.”

He was figuring out when the next total was, as he had heard it was in Spain in a few years, though his parking lot compadres thought it was in Iceland in a different year. Here you go, Tom Jones: the next total solar eclipse is slated for Aug. 12, 2026, with a path of totality limited to Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small area of Portugal.

Over in the village of Elba, Clerk Jerah Augello manned a booth at Elba Central School as part of eclipse activities. She enjoyed watching the eclipse in action despite the gray matter obscuring it.

“This is amazing, even though we didn't get to see the full eclipse because of the clouds. The fact that we're on top of the football field with a big crowd of the community, and it's dark, and it really got dark very quickly,” she said. “And then, within a matter of minutes, it was bright again. And then we did get to see a sliver. It was really amazing. I really wish we could have seen the whole thing but what we did get to experience was pretty cool itself.”

That seemed to be the consensus, including for Molly Anderson, who noted that “we’ve got people from all over the country, from Virginia and Georgia and New Jersey.”

“I think this is awesome that everybody came together up here. And, you know, we're up here on the football field and got to see the little sliver there at the end. But it's nice,” Anderson said. “It was great that the community put this together. And you know, we're all out here, and it’s something to remember forever: darkness in the middle of the afternoon.”

School, village and community members worked together to provide the day, which included musical entertainment by the Front Porch Pickers, homemade onion soup, fried dough, a lemonade stand and the Sports Boosters firing up the grill, to name a few of the offerings.

“We had a great turnout today. I believe that this was because there was something for everyone to enjoy at our school and throughout the village. So many of the Elba community members came out, but there were many from the surrounding area, too,” School Superintendent Gretchen Rosales said. “We even had some out-of-state guests; they had no connection to Elba but really wanted to experience the eclipse, so they picked the Elba community as their place to enjoy the moment.

“Although we didn't get to see too much due to the cloud cover, the darkness was impressive. The best part was being in a crowd with children and adults alike who were in awe of the experience.,” she said. “I am thankful that our community turned out for the event and so pleased that guests decided to join us in our Elba home for this fun. It was an honor to host everyone today for this once-in-a-lifetime event.”

Elba Elementary School student John Anderson, 10, thought it was “cool.”

“Just because it got so dark. All of a sudden, just in the afternoon, when it’s not nighttime,” he said. “I think it was fun. I got to play football with my friends.”

Being part of an eclipse is “just one of those moments that you’re never gonna forget,” Jessica Beck, a graduate student from Philadelphia, said. She saw the partial in 2017 after she and her family made a last-minute dash to Nashville to go see it as the clouds started coming in with the totality’s path.

“But we found a spot that was clear. You know, you can you can say what happens, like, the crickets started chirping, the birds went quiet. You saw a rainbow all around the horizon; the stars came out. But just the goosebumps, like I'm feeling right now just recounting this, I felt total goosebumps, just totally in awe of the fact that we're on this little speck of a planet and it just happened to line up right with its own moon,” she said at DeWitt Recreation Area. “And we're witnessing the heavenly bodies moving into position. It's just so cool. It's hard to put into words, but it pulls you back.

“I’m kind of banking on the fact that it's definitely going to be like sudden nightfall; we're gonna have sudden night for about three and a half minutes here in Batavia, and the wildlife, I’ve been hearing the Red-winged blackbirds chirping since we got here to the park, and they're gonna stop that,” she said. “So we are gonna hear the wildlife kind of going crazy. It is going to be total darkness. And I think it's still going to be an experience even though you're not getting the full view of the sky that you would have otherwise.”

And why did you choose Batavia?
So Philadelphia's closest to this area in terms of where the region of totality is. I had some familiarity with the region as my mom is a U or R alum, and my sister is a U of R alum, so I spent some time in upstate New York and kind of wanted to see Niagara again,”she said. “So I knew there would be stuff to do in and around here, even if we had cloud cover on the actual day, so we've actually been here since Friday just been enjoying what the Finger Lakes region has to offer.”

Round Up of The Batavian's Eclipse Coverage:

jessica beck eclipse — *Jessica Beck.*
*Photo by Howard Owens*

total eclipse genesee county 2024 — *Jesse Hawley at DeWitt Recreation Area in Batavia.*
*Photo by Howard Owens.*