Wake County readies for Library Eclipse Bash

Elaina Athans Image
Friday, August 18, 2017
Wake County readies for Library Eclipse Bash
Wake County readies for Library Eclipse Bash

Solar-eclipse sunglasses have become quite the commodity as you might have figured out by now. Businesses across the Triangle are completely sold out. The STAR Library Network, with support from the Moore Foundation, Google, NASA, the Research Corporation, and NSF, is trying to help.

The network is giving away 2 million of glasses to more than 7,000 libraries across the country so folks can soak in the eclipse safely.

Wake County has purchased some and will be distributing them during its solar party.

Organizers tell ABC11 says the response has been overwhelming. People keep calling to reserve a spot for the Cameron Village celestial viewing party. In one weekend, 500 people registered.

"It's wonderful. It's a great reflection of Wake County," said Wake County Library Experience Manager Sarah Lyon. "It's a community of people who are engaged and interested and love learning."

The county is bringing in experts from the North Carolina Musuem of Natural Sciences to speak and has more than 2,000 solar glasses to give out.

But before you get your hopes up, and think you can just come by and pick a pair up, the glasses are all accounted for.

There has in fact been so much interest, people are going to be required to share at the solar party.

"We just don't have enough glasses to run the program safely," said Lyon. "We're so happy they reached out to the public library and are thinking of us. We anticipated people would be interested, we just didn't know how interested they would be."

County officials are still welcoming people to come out and enjoy the eclipse festivities Monday afternoon.

Wake is holding another viewing party Monday afternoon at Yates Mill Park. It starts at 1:00 and ends at 4:00.

An official tells ABC11 they do have viewing glasses and will be handing them out on a first-come, first-serve basis.