OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Transportation officials in Oregon and Washington have a message for the region's drivers: However bad you think traffic is going to be during next week's total solar eclipse, it's probably going to be worse than you imagine. A lot worse.

While just a 60-to-70 mile wide swath of central Oregon is within the path of totality next Monday, Washington and Oregon officials say that significant backups are expected throughout both states both before and after the short event ends, with potentially hundreds of thousands of people clogging the roadways as they try to drive home or head to airports.

The eclipse is the first coast-to-coast total solar eclipse in the United States since 1918, and the first to hit any section of the U.S. mainland since 1979. In Oregon alone, about a million people are expected to cluster in various areas in the central part of the state to watch the event.

More From 610 KONA