There is a story of come city in the US (San Fran?) losing power and emergency services were overloaded with calls of people freaking out over the milky way.
The story is Los Angeles, but not sure the veracity
Fun fact: in SF, the fog can act as a light pollution blanket: from the top of Mt Tam, I’ve looked southeast and seen the Milky Way on a moonless night
Much of Marin is relatively non-light polluted compared to similarly populated areas thanks to the outdoor advertising prohibition, though LED street lights have made things worse. (I'm not disputing the fog blanket point, but it's presumably helped by reduced light pollution).
If you haven't ventured out to try to see the milkyway (be sure to check stellarium or similar) you should give it a try sometime.
Most of the populated US is a lot further from truly dark skies than we are in the bay area.
It does make a big difference to go somewhere really dark, but that's a bit more of a haul. Once on a trip through rural Oregon I could see the milkyway through my windshield, pulled over to turn the lights off and view and was amazed that it cast a visible shadow once our eyes were adapted.
