Eclipse effort comes in 'well under budget,' according to coordinator

Based on past articles published by the newspaper, the council and A&P Commission provided a total $140,000 ($70,000 each) for eclipse preparations, while the commission also provided $20,000 for 50,000 pairs of eclipse glasses, $60,000 for the Searcy Beats & Eats’ Galaxy Fest at the Searcy Event Center on the day of the eclipse April 8, $25,000 for Main Street Searcy’s SUNday on the Square on April 7 and $2,200 for Pioneer Village’s Spring Open House that weekend.

Friday was asked by Mayor Mat Faulkner to step out of the room Monday at the Searcy Regional Chamber of Commerce, where the Searcy Eclipse Committee was holding a recap meeting. Faulkner then talked to the committee about a $5,000 bonus that was budgeted for her if she did a good job as eclipse coordinator.

“She worked her tail off,” Faulkner said. A vote was taken and all there voted in favor of Friday receiving the bonus. She came back into the room and got the news. All applauded her work as eclipse coordinator.

Searcy Assistant Police Chief Brian Wyatt said the eclipse effort “went very smooth for us. I don’t think we had any major incidents we had to respond to. Crowd control was easy enough. Everyone was easy to get along with. Everyone was just happy to be there. We didn’t have any problems.”

Wyatt said the police department “had several traffic plans that we were ready to implement if needed. The crowds kind of took care of themselves. It seems like there was a mass exodus as soon as something was over; some stayed around, some filtered out. We had a lot of good feedback from the people at the events and compliments and didn’t see anything negative at all.

Searcy Regional Airport Manager Roger Pearson said that only seven planes flew in to the airport. He mentioned that Russellville had 90, but was planning on 200.

“Ronald Reagan said, ‘Trust but verify,’ and we did that,” Pearson said. “We trusted Arkansas Parks and Tourism for what they said from the very beginning. The failure that I made is that I really didn’t look at a demographics study. A demographics study would have gained a better idea probably of what to truly expect.

“The next time we do something like this, I learned to do a demographics study to be kind of in-tuned to what I can expect. But the people that came, they were amazing, they were fun to be around, the ones that did come. Granted, not a lot of them, but we all kind of came together as one family. They were so complimentary of their experience at the airport. It was a good thing, a good experience.”

Pearson said visitors at the airport came from places like Alabama and Mississippi.

Searcy Fire Chief Brian Dunavan said everything went smooth for his department and the things that he got out of the eclipse was the planning for it with all the organizations. He said that “will help us on future emergencies.”

On Sunday, one person was treated at Main Street, Dunavan said, but he thinks that was a minor. “Everything was minor. Monday at Berryhill and at the event center there was one person treated [from each place]. At the airport, we had an engine staffed for the day.”

Dunavan said use of the radios went really well. “Basically, it was just a good learning experience.”

Frankie Feltrop, head of security at Unity Health, said handing the eclipse crowd was a lot easier than a lot of people thought it was going to be. “We had extra staff so that helped in itself, but I think the numbers were down from normal as well. I think some of the procedures people pushed back and stuff. It was a laid-back day. It was great, a very good experience.”

White County Office of Emergency Management Director Tyler Mize added, “To echo these men, we just took the information we were provided from national statistics from Parks and Tourism. We overprepared, which is great.”

“We started the day with about eight dispatchers and eight members of the EOC [emergency operations center] and we had 18 of our 31 rural fire departments actively staffed for the day,” Mize said. “We had nine cities actively staffed with police. We had numerous deputies on the road and a lot of assistance from our state partners as well. By Saturday evening and into Sunday morning, we started cost containing dramatically through most of those departments.

“Just evaluating it as a win, but regardless a lot of what I think they were preaching to the locals on the news, even though it seems to have scared a lot, our call volume countywide was absolutely bottomed out for about two days. We were probably 80 percent under average call volume.”

Mize also echoed Dunavan, saying, “We learned so much from this and we are so much better prepared to handle something large in the future. We still have a lot of work to do. We had some Bandaids on some places still for this that we know we can fix before something goes wrong. I’m grateful for the opportunity it gave us to grow,”

White County Historical Society President Shelly Churchwell said the two days of activities at Pioneer Village went great with about 1,400 people coming out. She said two countries outside the United States were represented as well as 20 other states and 50 other Arkansas cities.

“It was a 35 percent increase over our visitors a year ago at our 2023 Spring Open House,” Churchwell said. “We attribute part of that to the eclipse but also we advertised a whole lot more this year. We received $2,200 from A&P for signage and Facebook boostings and we used about all of that, and I think that was helpful. People knew where we were and everything.”

Churchwell said she enjoyed the meetings with the city and the county during the planning process. “It was a good event. It was worth all the effort.”

Searcy Parks and Recreation Director Mike Parsons said his department “had a pretty small crew and we divided and conquered. We’re getting pretty good at doing these events now for all these groups throughout time. We had a few of us over at Berryhill [Park]. It went really well. We had a real good time. We got out of there about 3:30, 4 o’clock and after that, we all went over to Galaxy Fest. We didn’t have any problems whatsoever.”

He showed appreciation to his co-worker Will Walker “going way beyond what he normally does to get all these events done.” Walker said, “It was different and a learning opportunity, too, like everybody else has said.”

A representative of Arkansas State University-Beebe’s Searcy campus said they parked 10 cars on eclipse day and cooked a lot of burgers and hot dogs. A representative from Harding University said the Tuesday night Arkansas Symphony Orchestra performance that was promoted for eclipse activities had a little more than 1,400 tickets sold. The university also had a private cookout that was “well attended,” along with a tailgate event.

Faulkner said, “I’m just incredibly proud of this group, the collaboration, the teamwork with the county. I’m proud of how we reached out to other communities and they reached out to us and we were able to share information that would be mutually beneficial. I think with the information that we were given, we were well prepared.”

He said there was huge value with the marketing effort, too. “Our No. 1 goal was that everyone has a fantastic experience and just to hear how smoothly it all went, everybody was safe, just kudos to everybody that has worked so hard.”

“... Again, I have not heard one negative from anybody that came out and experienced the eclipse in. The visitors who came from all over have just been praising this community.”