As many as 100,000 people could make their way to Yates County this weekend for Monday’s solar eclipse. Sheriff Frank Ryan says his department, along with other county and state agencies, have been planning for this weekend for several months.
“We started having discussions amongst our Office of Emergency Services and a number of the state agencies several months ago to try and come up with a comprehensive plan to address some of the public safety issues that would arise from a typical event like this When I say typical, we are dealing with it more in a traffic safety and concentration of people types of emergencies,” said Sheriff Ryan.
Ryan said the county has come up with a Comprehensive Plan that is available for residents to view on the county website.
“A lot of work was done in planning as far as getting set up with extra wrecker services, and additional staffing, we have boats set up for all three lakes (Keuka, Seneca, and Canandaigua) in case there is a water emergency.”
Ryan told us that making sure enough staff was available for the weekend was important.
“We’ve initiated an Emergency Response Plan according to our Policies and Procedures that allow us to have a call-out list for staff that is available in the event of an emergency, so we have a list of people ready to call out.”
Ryan added plans are also in place to deploy additional staff as they are needed.
Sheriff Ryan added he wants residents to be patient and give themselves extra time to get places this weekend but most importantly, enjoy Monday’s event.
