Oklahoma State Parks Offered A Prime Spot To View 2024 Solar Eclipse

Oklahoma state parks was a popular place on Monday to catch totality. Shelley Zumwalt with the Oklahoma Department of Tourism and Recreation described the experience that Oklahomans had at Beaver's Bend State Park in Broken Bow.

Chinh Doan: Good afternoon, Shelly. Are you getting to rest yet?

Zumwalt: Yeah, well, no, not quite yet. But that'll come that'll come I think I'm still like, you know, energized from the experience. It was just great. Like, like you said watching the children's reactions, seeing the people, and just kind of the hush that came over everyone anticipation building up to it. You know, I've never like you said, I've never been through it. And being able to be a part of this and kind of the collective [spirit.] Like everyone when it happened, you know, we're just like screaming and yay, and cheering and it was just it was a really great moment.

Chinh: And you know, all eyes were on the forecast, of course, wondering if they should be here. This was the place to be. And of course, you all are doing everything you can but you can't control the weather. But the clouds cleared up right before that special moment.

Zumwalt: That was unbelievable, and I kept like sitting there going Oklahoma, you never know, you never know, you know, because people are like, it's gonna be cloudy. And then, like you said, like, right beforehand, it was just like, everything broke. And I don't know if anyone can hear it here. But like, the birds are going crazy. The sun shining, like we had just a perfect delivery. And we're so lucky. We're just so very lucky.

Chinh: And then for your team, what's next?

Zumwalt: Yeah, well, we're getting everyone safely home, right? So, people that are still staying here tonight, of course, we're happy to take care of them and roll out the red carpet because we love that they chose Oklahoma for this experience. But obviously, everyone's gonna go back to the places that you know, they traveled from, and we want to make sure they get there safely, and that we're doing it in a manner that's orderly. And that's really with the help of our highway patrol, the Department of Transportation. All of the people we partnered with to make this day possible.

Chinh: And I'm sure your team is still crunching numbers trying to figure out kind of everything. But do we kind of have preliminary numbers yet of how many people here and of course, the economic impact?

Zumwalt: Yeah, I can tell you, we were expecting up to 60,000 people, we're still getting all the numbers crunched, probably be available here in I don't know about an hour. But the piece of it that I think is really interesting, as you said, is the economic impact to this area, we're expecting up to $7,000,000.0 to 7 and a half million dollars per day, the weekend before and today because of the eclipse. And that's just, you know when you look at the number of people that actually are in the population, for this county, a number of people that traveled here, it almost doubled the size of it.

Chinh: And of course, the long-lasting impact. There are people who said they've never been to Oklahoma and never been to this part of town. They have a good experience, they'll be back.

Zumwalt: That's absolutely, you know, wants people to come to Oklahoma, they always come back because it is such a great experience. We were so happy to host people from Denmark, you know, Norway, California, Tennessee, Hawaii, we just had people from all over that descended on our great state. And we're so lucky that nature chose us. But you know, it's a great indication that when people choose Oklahoma, they're gonna have a great time.

Chinh: And before we let you go, is there anything you'd like our viewers or visitors to know?

Zumwalt: You know, what I, I just feel so fortunate to be in this position and be able to experience this with the citizens of Oklahoma, you know, this is the best job that I've ever had. And to get to do something like this in nature, you know, at a state park with the people that are really, you know, here because they love our state that was like the pinnacle. It was such a great experience. So yeah, thank you,

Chinh: Shelly. Thank you to you and your heart team for your hard work. Thank you for your time.