In St. Albans, streetlights switching on along Main Street — and dogs barking — were among the first signs that the total solar eclipse’s path of totality was just a few minutes away for the crowd of hundreds of people gathered in Taylor Park downtown on Monday afternoon.
In Burlington, as totality hit at 3:26 p.m., a swath of the thousands of people gathered along the Lake Champlain waterfront began cheering and screaming. A lighthouse on the lake turned on, and a flock of seagulls flew across the water, loudly making noise.
At Middlebury College, anticipation was high. Students, staff and faculty participating in a college-wide viewing event cheered in fits and bursts, trying to determine how much longer until the thin sliver of the sun would be completely blocked by the moon. The loudest noise erupted when the moment of totality had finally arrived, and they cheered again when the sun reappeared.
And in a quiet residential neighborhood in Berlin, neighbors suddenly emerged from their homes, sporadically whooping and yee-hawing, until the moment of totality was done.
Shaun Robinson, Peter D’Auria, Sophia Keshmiri and Maggie Cassidy contributed reporting.
