Texas city braces for flood of visitors trying to watch the eclipse
By William Rodriguez
HAYS COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) – Upwards of 3.7 million people are expected to travel to have a look at the total eclipse within the United States on April 8, according to GreatAmericanEclipse.com.
As parts of Texas will be within the “path of totality,” a thin path from which the moon can be seen completely covering the sun, thousands of tourists are expected to inundate the area. One of the cities preparing to be inundated by eclipse chasers is Kyle, located southwest of Austin and home to about 52,000 people.
In order to ensure businesses are ready for that influx, the Kyle Area Chamber of Commerce hosted a luncheon to help them prepare.
“The Kyle community is going to see a large impact on the restaurants; hotels are already sold out,” said Julie Snyder, President of the Kyle Area Chamber of Commerce. “We believe that it’s going to impact the economy in a positive way as long as [business owners] are prepared,” she continued.
Kyle’s Emergency Management Coordinator, William Paiz-Tabash, said his biggest concern is traffic flowing through the city once the event has concluded.
“There are cascading effects from just traffic,” Paiz-Tabash said. “Traffic is a wear on your transportation infrastructure, traffic gets in the way of emergency vehicles getting to where they need to go, [and] traffic is increased demand for all the services that we rely on,” he said.
Paiz-Tabash encouraged business owners Tuesday to consider changing things like shipping schedules if a delivery is planned for the day of the celestial event. He also warned them to expect an increased volume of customers.
“Our infrastructure has not changed. It [will be the same] on April 7 as it’s gonna be on April 8,” he said. “But you’re gonna have a million more people potentially asking for the same services.”
