ST. ALBANS, W.Va. — More than 150 people were lined outside of the St. Albans Branch Library Thursday evening for glasses that, at a quick glance, could have been mistaken for the paper 3-D glasses more commonly seen in movie theaters.
But if look closer, the lens were not red and cyan, but rather silver.
These glasses are not designed for bringing what is being shown on screens into the third dimension, but rather to protect wearers from the sun during Monday’s total solar eclipse.
According to the National Weather Service, the eclipse will be at 1:06 p.m. and go to 3:59 p.m. Between 80 and 93 percent of the sun will be covered by the moon for those watching in West Virginia, with southern parts of the state having a higher percentage of coverage.
For St. Albans residents, the coverage is expected to be around 90 percent.
Hanna Johnson, a junior at St. Albans High School, said there is a lot of excitement around the solar eclipse.
“I just think it’s pretty cool because it doesn’t happen often,” she said.
The last total solar eclipse to happen over the United States was in February 1979, when Jimmy Carter was president.
Kanawha County Public Library Marketing and Development Terry Wooten said glasses were provided in anticipation of local demand.
“We received a phone call from a patron who had heard that libraries were giving away glasses,” she said. “We thought that people were going to continue to call because they thought the library was going to have them, so we purchased 500 pairs of the eclipse glasses.”
Wooten said following additional demand, the library system purchased 500 additional pairs, bringing the total to 1,000.
On Thursday, residents were given wooden popsicle sticks with a number printed on the top. The 154 sticks represented a pair of glasses, which were all given out within 20 minutes.
“We were glad we were able to help people and have glasses for them,” Wooten said. “We realize now we could have ordered 100,000 and probably given them all away.”
Wooten said she expects the library will get hundreds of calls as Monday gets closer, but she mentioned none of the county’s libraries will have any glasses.
Mark Banyai recalled the last eclipse he saw in 1994, which was annular.
“I remember it was the same exact deal where we couldn’t look at the sun, but we used a piece of paper with a hole poked in it,” he said, glasses in hand.
The American Optometric Association recommends not looking at the sun during the eclipse without eye protection. Sunglasses and other forms of eye protection do not provide adequate enough protection from the sun’s rays.