MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (WBTW) – Horry County officials held the first of three meetings to let the public and businesses know about safety plans for the Memorial Day Weekend Bikefest on Wednesday.
The meetings are intended for those community members that may live or have businesses near the 23-mile extended traffic loop. Local government agencies gave an overview on the plans to include traffic management, increased police presence and enforcement of laws, business responsibility, and location of information.
The overall theme of the meeting was coordination and communication among officials, businesses and the community.
County leaders spent a lot of time addressing questions about the traffic loop and how local residents will be able to navigate it. But, businesses owners who have locations along the loop were concerned with how officers would handle the large crowds.
“We made our response zones smaller and we’ve added additional officers and we have a lot of contingency plans in place to mobilize people as we need to. Hopefully this and the unified command will keep things rolling and information moving and we’ll be able to respond to situations faster and better than we have in the past,” Lieutenant Raul Denis with Horry County Police Department said.
Lt. Denis says they have an additional 100 supplemental officers that will patrol all day. Those officers will cover 12 concentrated zones in groups of two or three. Those zones include areas like Restaurant Row and Highway 501.
Horry County Fire Rescue will also have 10 additional ambulances this year. They will be parked in busy areas for an immediate response. Crews will take patients to hospitals with open beds to avoid overcrowding any one hospital.
County leaders say communication will be important to making plans work.
“Our biggest role with the EOC being operational is situation awareness and logistics. Situational awareness will be keeping a pulse of what’s going on throughout the entire area, not just one jurisdiction, coordinating that information back and forth to those who need it,” Emergency Management Director, Randy Webster said.
County leaders will also have a unit in Conway that will monitor social media as well provide real-time traffic updates about the loop to the community.
The second business meeting is next Tuesday at Beach Church.
