It's used as the main hub for emergency responders dealing with disasters like Hurricane Floyd and the Horry County Wildfire and Wednesday the Emergency Operations Center in Conway was the focus of Horry County's week-long, full-scale safety exercise.
"We probably have about 125 people here. The Emergency Operations Center, when it opens, is a 24 hour, 7 days a week operation until it needs to close. When Hurricane Floyd came, we were here for several months," Lisa Bourcier, Horry County Public Information Director said.
Local, state and city agencies, like Horry County Police, Horry County Department of Airports, South Carolina Emergency Management, the American Red Cross and the South Carolina National Guard participated in Wednesday's hurricane response exercise aimed at improving emergency response by adding and updating the plan already in place.
"This is a good exercise to do because a hot wash, which is an after-action report, after this is done for the week will show really what went well and what are some other things we need to work on," Bourcier added.
Some of those improvements may be additional technology, different mapping requirements or plans that haven't yet been contemplated.
"Of course you're best exercise that you never do is an actual real event and unfortunately, we've had to do those over the years. But that gets experience and that's how we are prepared how we are today," Bourcier said.
