Heidi Kucera, a Kerrville resident and general manager at C.J. Copeland’s — a women’s retail store downtown — is viewing Monday’s solar eclipse from her home, roughly seven minutes from the city’s epicenter.
Kucera said those who live year-round in Kerrville were told to stock up on anything they need and avoid nonessential travel. A few days before the eclipse, she was on a grocery run and saw people loading their cars with food and supplies.
Although Courtney Boswell MacDonald, the boutique’s owner, did not have any issues placing a to-go H-E-B order, one of the store’s other employees said that during a recent trip to the supermarket, there was no bread in the aisle.
Kerrville Police Sergeant Jonathan Lamb advised those taking to the road on Monday to attempt a same-day trip despite the influx of crowds to bring water, snacks, activities to keep children entertained and any necessary prescriptions.
City officials want spectators in place for the eclipse by 10 a.m. as traffic — one of the primary concerns of the day — is expected to pick up around this time.
According to Lamb, Kerrville’s Police Department is partnered with the Texas Department of Transportation, Kerr County Road & Bridge and the city’s street department to devise Kerville’s Eclipse Traffic Safety Plan.
It mirrors the traffic plan they have in effect during their “4th on the River” festival, an annual celebration in July that attracts large crowds but on a larger scale to accommodate the more than 150,000 visitors the city is anticipating to arrive.
The biggest change in the plan is the creation of a contraflow lane on one of the highways, SH-16, allowing three lanes of travel back to the interstate.
“It’s all designed to facilitate folks leaving town and heading back to the interstate and state highways to return home safely after the Eclipse,” Lamb said. “There’s multiple avenues that we’re directing people to get back on the interstate.”
“The whole purpose of that is to keep traffic moving as efficiently as possible,” he added. We know there will be traffic delays, but we hope to mitigate some of those delays by directing people via multiple routes back towards their homes.”
Lamb said officials know that some people visiting locations on the path of totality during the 2017 solar eclipse spent 10 to 11 hours driving 140 miles. They want to avoid a situation like this, but he reminded those on the road to remain patient, as a trip that normally takes three to four hours may take significantly longer on Monday.
TxDOT contracted additional officers from multiple agencies to help man barricades, intersections and direct traffic. Kerrville city officials coordinated with multiple San Antonio agencies for extra security assistance.
According to Julie Behrens, Kerrville’s Director of Finance, TxDOT’s assistance helped lighten the city’s financial load. The Kerrville City Council approved an overall budget of $750,000 to cover eclipse expenditures—over $300,000 has gone solely to traffic control efforts.
Without the state transportation department’s help, this amount would have been increased by an additional $150,000. Behrens is now projecting the target spending range to fall between $600,000 and $650,000.
Despite Kerrville swelling with visitors from near and far, Behrens said that the city expects to make little money from the event. She added that if taxable sales increased by $1 million for the term, that’s about $10,000 to Kerrville’s general fund.
“It doesn’t even really touch the need for public safety,” Behrens said. The perception is that there are a lot of people in town, so there’s a lot of money in town, and that’s not the case. It may be great for our local businesses to see an uptick in sales for their preparations, but the city’s portion is really small.”
The same can be said for hotel occupancy tax revenue, as the projected amount is expected to be under $100,000. Behrens noted that the occupancy tax fund is limited in the city’s budget, so officials aren’t relying on that.
“We took some measures, hoping that maybe there will be some funding, a reimbursement specifically for public safety,” Behrens said. “So, we’re tracking costs very closely.”
Mayor Judy Eychner signed a disaster declaration last week as a precautionary measure to facilitate the securement of federal relief funding should an emergency occur.
MacDonald said sales at her boutique have been up ahead of the eclipse, with all the visitors coming in from Texas, across and outside the country. Many shoppers were asking for the store’s eclipse-themed candles and cups.
Two women who came by the shop had traveled from Canada to Kerrville to view the celestial event.
“She [one of the two women] told us she’s been to many places and that we were friendly here. They were scared to go to H-E-B, though, because there were so many people there,” Kucera laughed.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
