The potential for an onslaught of visitors to overwhelm various services before and during the April 8 total eclipse drew representatives of the county and most Wood County cities to a meeting with state officials last Tuesday in Quitman.

Concerns range from traffic to health and sanitation as some 720,000 people are forecasted to converge on northeast Texas for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Wood County Emergency Management Coordinator Tully Davidson briefed some of the concerns and preparations.

Hotels and other facilities such as campgrounds and RV parks have been booked months, and in some cases, years in advance.

The primary issue with traffic would likely be during and immediately after the eclipse, which is predicted to last about four minutes of totality.

Some lessons learned from the annual ring-of-fire eclipse that passed through areas farther south in Texas in October were people just pulling over at the time, even on major freeways.

The outflow of traffic is concentrated in the minutes immediately after the event and for up to two hours.

And a normal avenue for help with traffic control, the Dept. of Public Safety, should not be counted on, the officials noted, because troopers are spread thin due to rotations serving at the Texas-Mexico border.

Visitors will begin arriving from 1-4 days before the event, which hits on a Monday, meaning the potential for restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses to see a sudden influx of customers over that period.

Another caution is to be wary of solar eclipse glasses being sold online.

Glasses should be purchased that meet approved safety standards to prevent eye damage.

The center of the path of the eclipse is just northwest of Wood County, with the nearest point just past the upper reaches of Lake Fork.

All of Wood County will be in the path of totality about 1:40 p.m. for about four minutes. The path stretches to just past Tyler to the southeast and almost to Denton and Sherman to the northwest.

The path just clips the northwest edge of Sulphur Springs and goes right through Clarksville before crossing the Red River into Oklahoma.

It crosses U.S. 80 just west of Elmo in Kaufman County and U.S. 69 in Rains County between Point and Lone Oak.

The Rotary Club of Quitman has taken a role in raising funds to  provide approved glasses for area school children, beginning with the annular eclipse.