McALLEN — Carolina Sanchez was just a teenager the last time she experienced an eclipse.
She was working at a clothing store for infants in Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato at the time. On Monday, Sanchez, who’s now 70, brought her 9-year-old granddaughter to the McAllen Public Library to experience it again.
They were joined by about 2,000 attendees who braved the near 100-degree heat in front of the McAllen Public Library for what was the first total solar eclipse in North America in nearly 40 years.
The McAllen resident said she was about 15 or 16 years old and working early in the day when she first experienced the event. Although she couldn’t recall the date of that eclipse, a NASA webpage dedicated to Monday’s eclipse showed a similar occurrence on July 20, 1963, which matches Sanchez’s recollection.
“First the sky turned yellowish,” Sanchez said in Spanish. “Then there was total darkness moments before the light came back.”
Her granddaughter, Rosales, is interested in science and the planets and accompanied Sanchez to the viewing.
“ (I brought her) so she could experience (the eclipse) — how it works and what it looks like,” Sanchez said.
The fourth-grader said planetary science, more specifically the study of the temperatures on each planet, fascinates her.
Rosales’ excitement, and that of the rest of the crowd, could be felt throughout the event as the anticipation of the eclipse’s peak hour inched closer.
Around noon as pop music blared from speakers near a makeshift table in front of the library’s main entrance, people took turns sharing the viewing glasses and pinhole devices that had run out just an hour before.
Inside the library, a few people sat in the 180-seat auditorium where a live stream of the eclipse could be viewed, while others stood in a line for snacks, including popcorn for the coming show.
Kate Horan, the library’s director, said the event went off without a hitch despite running out of viewing glasses.
“ We had people lined up outside around 9 this morning waiting to get a pair,” Horan said.
She said they handed out 1,000 free viewing glasses and about 500 pinhole devices before noon.
“ What’s amazing is despite having run out, you see a lot of people sharing their glasses — that’s really cool to see,” Horan said.
In total, Horan said she believes they handed out more than 1,600 viewing glasses, with 1,000 of them going early on and the rest in the weeks and days leading up to the event.
“ It’s really heartwarming,” Horan said of someone sharing their glasses with her, a common occurrence on Monday. “It says something about Valley people. I have chills right now. I didn’t think I’d be so thrilled, but I’m super-thrilled to (have) seen (the eclipse).”
Heather Bobrowicz, a children’s librarian who has been with the library for a little more than a year, said she wasn’t surprised by the large turnout, because of the excitement leading up to the event.
Bobrowicz said last week that the library held an event in anticipation of the viewing party, where kids could create eclipse-related crafts such as models of the sun, earth and moon, as well as crafts that showed the different phases of the moon, to name a few. She said about 300 people attended the crafts event.
“ We had people asking about a good month ahead of time — when we were doing this, what was going on — and the past couple days it’s just been crazy with the amount of calls that we’ve been getting,” she said. “It’s fantastic. I love that people are coming to the library.”
Sharon Watts, originally from Manhattan, Kansas, attended the library event with two of her kids and two of her partner’s children.
The 37-year-old said she arrived just in time to secure a few pairs of glasses and was also excited to share the moment with her kids.
“ (I’m) trying to show them the significance of it,” Watts said.
Rosie Garza, 64, of McAllen brought her two granddaughters, Shaelyn Murillo, 9, and Naydean Murillo, 11, because of her own experience witnessing a lunar eclipse when she lived in Reynosa.
“It was something very emotional for me,” Garza said in Spanish. “It was a beautiful experience.”
Naydean Murillo said she loves science because of how hands-on the subject can be.
“ I would think (the eclipse) would be cool to kids who’ve never experienced it,” she said. “It’s good that (all these) kids came out to experience if for the first time.”
But for those who missed Monday’s event, there’s no reason to fret because in seven short years, Texas and specifically those in South Texas will be treated to a complete eclipse in the summer of 2024.
Bobrowicz said that event would likely draw an even larger crowd.
“ We’re going to have a fantastic view down here because of the way (the eclipse) is going through (Texas),” she said. “We’re going to be real close to having full coverage. I would love to see this big of a crowd in seven years.”
