The day the lights went out

Most people never have the opportunity to view a total solar eclipse during their lifetimes. I’ve had the good fortune to witness two of the rare celestial events.

My first total eclipse was Aug. 21, 2017, in Peru, Neb., an hour south of Omaha. It was the closest event to Storm Lake so Mary and I drove down to the small town.

Then last weekend Mary and I drove 650 miles to Hagerstown, Ind., a small town an hour east of Indianapolis, which was directly in the path of Monday afternoon’s total solar eclipse. It’s the home of former Storm Laker Dan Diercks and his wife Becky, who invited us to stay with them and witness this rare event. The nine and a half hour drive was the closest total eclipse to Storm Lake.

As we gazed skyward wearing protecting glasses, the moon blocked out the sun for four minutes and one second at 3:09 p.m. Eastern time, precisely as astronomers had predicted.

The entire eclipse interval in Indiana began at 1:51 p.m. and lasted for two hours and 32 minutes, ending at 4:24 p.m. ET.

For those four minutes of the total eclipse, the sky turned as black as night. Stars came out and birds stopped chirping. The temperature, which had been about 75 degrees, cooled at least 10 degrees.

The drop in temperature was most astonishing. It makes you realize how hot the sun really is when you consider it’s 93 million miles away. The moon moving in front of it was like a switch turning a furnace on and off. Imagine how much warmer Earth would become if the sun was just a little closer, or how cold we would be if it dropped farther away. The alignment of our planets in our vast galaxy is a marvel of precision that allows scientists to predict events like this eclipse with astonishing accuracy for thousands of years. The next total eclipse of the sun over North America will be 20 years from now, on Aug. 23, 2044, but it will be visible in just three states: Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.

The dramatic change in our sky Monday also demonstrated how inconsequential and powerless we supposedly mighty humans are in the vast scheme of things. Artificial intelligence that we’re so excited about today is powerless in the face of Nature.

Dan Diercks is a 1968 graduate of St. Mary’s High School. His father Jack was manager of the Hygrade packing plant here. Dan’s brother Mike was sales manager at The Storm Lake Times for nine years until his untimely passing in 2009.

Dan was a high school English and journalism teacher in Hagerstown for 40 years until retiring in 2016, his only job after graduating from Indiana University and serving in the Army. Becky, a fellow IU graduate, just finished a six-year term as president and de facto mayor of Hagerstown’s city council, where she has served for 10 years. Becky helped plan Hagerstown’s reception for the thousands visitors who were expected to converge on the handsome town of 1,800 people. The community had a parade, fireworks, movies and other celebrations for its visitors.

Cities and towns along the path of the eclipse prepared for a year for an invasion of tourists to witness the spectacular celestial sight. Signs across Indiana’s interstate highways warned travelers to fuel their vehicles before the weekend and delay hitting the roads until well after the eclipse ended. We didn’t hear any reports of traffic gridlock Monday evening, but we didn’t leave until Tuesday morning so we avoided the rush.

Meanwhile, back in Storm Lake, 75% of the sun was obscured during the partial eclipse here. That sounds substantial, but it barely dimmed the daylight of the powerful star. Even when the sun was at 90% eclipse the light only dimmed marginally. It wasn’t until 100% that the lights really went out in Indiana.

Now I’m looking at road maps to Pierre for my next solar adventure in 20 years.