CONWAY, SC (WBTW) – The first people you call in an emergency are doing their part to practice social distancing and stay healthy.
Renee Hardwick is the director of Horry County 911 and says they split their staff between the normal dispatch office in Downtown Conway, and the ML Brown Jr. Public Safety Building.
“That allowed us to really physically separate everyone out in order to really meet the social distancing policy,” Hardwick said.
She tells News13 they have also staggered some staff schedules and are emphasizing the importance of cleaning work spaces.
Hardwick says she has not noticed an increase in calls, rather a shift in calls. She says more people are calling with concerns about social distancing and the coronavirus.
In fact, Hardwick says after she ran the numbers, she noticed Horry County 911 dispatchers received about 3,200 less calls last month than in March of 2019.
“We directly relate that to visitors not being able to come visit us that would normally be here this time of the year, and the schools, whether it’s k-12, the technical college, or Coastal being out,” Hardwick said.
Rather than tie up the emergency dispatchers with social distancing calls, Hardwick and Mikayla Moskov with Horry County Police say to call their non-emergency phone line.
“What we want people to do is keep 911 for those life-threatening, someone is in immediate danger, situations,” Moskov said. “You want to report a fire, you want to report a shooting things like that.”
The Horry County Police Department issued 11 Social Distancing citations; all of those the weekend of March 30th. Moskov says since that weekend, everyone officers have approached, agreed to separate.
She said most of the time when officers respond to those calls, people have already separated.
“It seems like people are taking Covid-19 more seriously, they are taking social distancing more seriously and ultimately because of that, we’ve been able to get compliance anytime we’ve gone up to someone,” Moskov said.
Moskov tells News13, they are also doing their best to make sure officers only respond in-person to calls that require a physical presence.
“Right now we have some of those road officers who would usually be out there doing every call in person, on the phones, answering more of those calls, the non-emergency items without that physical presence,” Moskov explained.
If you see a business not complying with Governor McMaster’s orders, you can email HCPD at compliance@horrycounty.org.
The Horry County non-emergency phone line, which is used to report social distancing violations is 843-248-1520.
