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County Tourism Board talks eclipse, motorsports

days leading up to, and after, the once-in-a-lifetime event.

ELYRIA — A lawn chair and viewing glasses are all visitors will need to see the total solar eclipse next year in Lorain County, Visitors Bureau Director Garry Gibbs said Thursday morning.

During a Tourism Board meeting, Gibbs said a meeting Monday with several Main Street organizations, Emergency Management and Homeland Security and others estimated as many as 900,000 people will come to Lorain County to view the solar eclipse April 8, 2024.

In Lorain County, the best vantage point will be near state Route 83 and Electric Boulevard in Avon Lake, he said, but Black River Landing in Lorain and the Lorain County Fairgrounds in Wellington are also gearing up for visitors.

And those visitors will need somewhere to stay, and something to do, so the Main Street organizations and the county are hoping people are flexible in the

The next time Northeast Ohio will be in the path of a total eclipse after next year’s event is 2099.

Gibbs hopes to make it as easy as possible for tourists and locals alike to enjoy the celestial event.

“I don’t think we’re behind the eight ball, we’re about a year out,” Gibbs said. “But it’ll be a big event here for Lorain County and we’ve got to figure out how to capture people’s money.”

Part of that money will be in hotel stays, which will benefit the county’s coffers via its 3 percent bed tax.

The 3 percent bed tax on hotel guests brought in an average of about $737,000 per year over the past seven years, Budget Director KC Saunders said — though yearly totals dipped drastically during COVID-19 before rising to about $850,000 for last year.

Gibbs said for every $100 a hotel room costs, the county receives $3.

And that fund has now grown to about $2.5 million.

Assistant Prosecutor Dan Petticord was tasked with researching whether those funds could help back a proposed motorsports complex on Lorain’s east side.

County commissioners heard plans for the proposal on Tuesday from Nick Jarmoszuk Jr., representing Xell LLC. Jarmoszuk Jr. and his father, Nick Jarmoszuk Sr., both with Skylift Inc., are taking the lead on the project, which looks to develop the former Cromwell Park landfill site into a motorsports park with a rental and competition go-kart track and related amenities.

Construction is expected to cost about $12 million, including contingencies, and the Jarmoszuks have already received a $2 million pledge from the city of Lorain, and hope for another $2 million investment from the county to move forward.

Petticord said there are certain ways the Tourism Board’s funds must be spent, requiring more research before the funds could be allocated to Xell LLC.

Lorain County cleans up well after weekend wind storm

After Ohio was swept by high winds on March 25, thousands of Lorain County residents were without power and streets were blocked by fallen trees and power lines.

But by the next day little evidence of that storm remained, and less than 1 percent of the county was still experiencing power outages.

A high wind warning from the National Weather Service was in place between 4 p.m. and midnight on Saturday.

The highest wind gusts in Lorain County were clocked at 63 mph in Elyria, and the NWS reported winds of 74 mph in Toledo. A Category 1 hurricane has winds of 7495 mph.

Elyria Fire Chief Joe Pronesti said that the city was “overwhelmed” with calls for downed trees, power lines and other debris between 2 and 8 p.m.

“When (the wind) hit we got back logged in calls,” Pronesti said. “We had trees come down, we’ve got wires all over the city. So we try to prioritize the best that we can, but for about six hours there we were running non-stop.”

Many municipalities in the county saw road closures caused by downed trees and power lines including Elyria, Avon Lake, North Ridgeville and others.

Pronesti said damage was widespread but that the most severe incident was a roof being blown off a business on the 500 block of South Abbe Road.

“I don’t think it was the worst (wind) we’ve seen,” Pronesti said. “Nothing extraordinary about it, just a very busy day.”

While first responders and cities got to work cleaning up debris, FirstEnergy crews saw to power outages caused by the storm.

At its peak on March 25, FirstEnergy was reporting roughly 19,000 power out- ages in Lorain County, with North Ridgeville seeing the most at 689.

Lorain and Elyria both had almost 400 outages.

By Sunday afternoon only 149 homes in the county were still without power.

A total of approximately 150,000 FirstEnergy customers lost power at some point on Saturday.

Nearby Wayne County was still the hardest hit as of Sunday, with 2,287, over 18 percent, of its customers without power.

“Our crews worked through challenging conditions overnight to restore power to more than 87,000 customers impacted by yesterday’s high winds,” a release said. With the help of outside resources, they will continue working around the clock to restore service to about 65,000 customers who remain without power.”

In a release sent on Sunday, FirstEnergy officials said that power would be returned to “most” customers by 4 p.m. March 29.

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