East Texas emergency officials voice concerns ahead of eclipse

TYLER, Texas (KETK) – East Texas is expecting thousands of visitors for next weeks total solar eclipse on Monday.

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Rusk County Emergency Management coordinator, Patrick Dooley said the county is expected to double in size.

“We’re going to look at possibly doubling our population size for the county,” said Dooley.

Smith County is expecting an influx of approximately 100,000 people eager to watch the ring of fire.

The surge of people is why emergency response teams are getting ready.

“We’re planning on activating the emergency operations center and with that we’ll have representatives from first responder organizations and other support personnel that that are necessary to carry out that function,” said Brandon Moore, Smith County Emergency Management Coordinator.

The biggest concern for next Monday is the amount of people that will be on the roads.

LIST: Eclipse events happening in East Texas

Officials said coordinating with multiple county offices will be key to make sure if an incident occurs, help can be on the way.

“We monitor a lot of social media, so we can try to keep up with what’s going on in different communities and then a lot of radio, listen to radio traffic,” said Dooley.

The current storm team forecast is calling for a windy, cloudy and possibly wet day.

Officials urge eclipse watchers to be alert if they plan on spending the day outside.

“Obviously the more severe weather we get, we don’t want people out in it, so we’ll be looking at the severity of it and then how we can mitigate any functions that are happening in the county,” said Moore.

Dooley said for people who will be lighting a fire, do not forget to put the fire all the way out.

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