MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – Myrtle Beach City Council declared Memorial Day weekend an “extraordinary event” during a special called teleconference meeting on Thursday.
Council approved a resolution to declare Memorial Day weekend an “extraordinary event” and authorize the city manager “to take all steps necessary for the preservation of public health, safety and welfare.”
Myrtle Beach Police Chief Amy Prock also discussed the department’s plan for the weekend, saying efforts will focus on flexibility, partnerships, deployment and traffic congestion.
Prock said plans include about 228 uniform officers, 150 state and local partners assisting and over 70 event staff personnel for traffic diversion. These units will be deployed on beaches, used for city patrol, traffic and regulatory enforcement and to break up mass gatherings.
“It’s also how they escalate into incidents. We had one incident that we had this past weekend and it was escalating into another incident. Fights, parties, and those things. We want to make sure we’re doing it on both scales,” said Prock.
Response teams will also be on the city’s back streets and will be able to bring more units to an area should an issue arise, Prock added. The plan for traffic congestion include efforts to keep traffic moving, to monitor congestion and to enforce traffic violations.
Plans are also in place to include barricades to protect pedestrians from vehicle traffic and to discourage people from walking into traffic, Prock also said. There are also several changes to traffic plans for the weekend. Read more about those here.
Prock further said that “the loop” for traffic won’t be used this year as there isn’t enough staff to effectively make that happen and that officers will be on walking on foot from 29th Avenue North to 29th Avenue South.
“The assistance that we normally receive, were not at a point that we’ve received that assistance. In order to put the traffic loop into our traffic management plan, we unfortunately would not have enough man power to definitely do that during this weekend,” said Prock.
On Thursday night, police posted a link to social media of an interactive traffic map of Ocean Boulevard for the weekend.
This weekend isn’t the only large event city officials are preparing for.
“It’s not only Memorial weekend, it’s July 4th, obviously the county has a lot of events that are coming up as well. So we are going to work together to address those concerns,” said Prock.
City attorney Will Bryan said the large number of people expected this weekend will put a burden on police, litter control and emergency response teams, especially along Ocean Boulevard. Bryan added that all of the typical concerns for Memorial Day events are now combined with concerns about COVID-19. He also said that violations of any rules or order will be viewed or deemed a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500 and/or up to 30 days in jail.
Following city council’s meeting, Prock and Myrtle Beach Mayor Brenda Bethune held a news conference to announces these plans to the public.
Count on us for updates.
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