Hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers will have their eyes to the sky during Monday's total solar eclipse, but a room full of first responders will be more focused on the ground.
The Indiana Department of Homeland Security activated its emergency operations center for the solar eclipse.
Agencies from across the state are in one room, ready to coordinate help wherever it is needed on eclipse day.
"Pretty much every seat in our operations center will be full," said Mary Moran, the Indiana Department of Homeland Security's emergency preparedness director. "I think the only other time where we've had an entire state event like this was during our COVID response."
Moran said they are anticipating one major factor: traffic jams.
"We've been told that 10, 12, 15 hour traffic jams along the interstates will be a normal thing," Moran said. "We have heard statistics that this will be like 71 Super Bowl events ending all at the same time."
The emergency operations center is also monitoring for any possible threats of terrorism or violence which could impact solar eclipse events.
"We haven't received any kind of credible threat that we're focused on," Moran said. "We just in our line of work always think about what could happen. That's been a little nerve-racking."
Moran said the Indiana Department of Homeland Security spent a year and a half refining their plans for this one day.
"I think we are as prepared as we could possibly be as a state," Moran said.
