Solar Eclipse A 'Once-In-A-Lifetime' Event In Metro Detroit

METRO DETROIT, MI — After weeks of hype, metropolitan Detroit got its fair share of the “Great American Eclipse” Monday afternoon. Starting shortly after 1 p.m. Eastern Time, the moon slowly made its way across the sun until it covered about 80 percent of the surface at 2:26 p.m.

Amy Blackwell brought her three children to the Detroit Zoo to watch the solar eclipse. “I took a day off of work so I could come and experience it with the kids,” she said. “I thought it could be a once-in-a-lifetime thing. So, why not experience it together?”

Daughter Heidi Blackwell built an eclipse viewer from a cereal box, foil and paper. She said the idea was for a dot of light to project onto a white piece of paper in the viewer. “It will just show a white dot and we’ll see the dot start to shrink,” Heidi Blackwell said.

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Nationally, the “path of totality” began on the West Coast, in Oregon, and swept across the United States over the course of a couple of hours. Besides Oregon, the moon blocked out the sun in spots across the country, including Missouri, Kentucky and concluding in South Carolina.

Kyle Gartner trekked across the Detroit River from Ontario, Canada to witness the event. Like the Blackwell family, he to built a “pinhole projection box” to watch the eclipse safely. It took him about 10 minutes to construct Monday morning.

“I wanted it to get as resolute as possible,” Gartner said. “It projects about a quarter of an inch size image on the back.”

He had read about the eclipse for weeks before making the drive. “I’ve been keeping an eye on the news articles,” Gartner said. “I’ve been looking forward to it for a few weeks now, anyway. It’s a unique event.”

Scott Edson of Royal Oak brought family from the Traverse City area in to watch the eclipse at the zoo. He said his sister-in-law ordered special glasses to watch the eclipse from Amazon early last week and didn’t think they would arrive in time, but they did.

“I remember when I was a kid in California doing the pinhole on the paper very vividly,” Edson added. “We were going to go down to Kentucky but decided to stay home and do it here. It’s exciting and it’s great for the kids. We thought it would be a wonderful spot.”

Doug Woolland drove from Ohio to visit a friend and take in the eclipse at the Detroit Zoo, too. He was prepared with a set of glasses to watch the event unfold.

“The view from where we are at is perfect,” Wooland said. “To see it visually progress to a crecent and then into a sliver, it’s going to be amazing.”

He said he talked to his mother-in-law while he was at the zoo and she said it was much darker than his vantage point in Royal Oak. “It’s totally a sliver down there,” Wooland said. “It’s 90 percent coverage.”

Photos by Scott Daniel (Patch Staff)