That Orange Crush 2023 was a logistical nightmare for Tybee Island is a fact few will dispute, but statistical data from the city shows the root of the problem might not be an obvious one. Statistically speaking, traffic volume on the island during last year’s Orange Crush weekend did not surpass that of other popular weekends.

The number of citations issued, and number of arrests made, were lower than at other times of the year as well. Emergency calls for public safety help, however, skyrocketed over three days of Orange Crush.

Something didn’t work in 2023, clearly, but city officials are determined this year will be different.

Police plans for Orange Crush this year are detailed in documents obtained by Connect Savannah through the Georgia Open Records Act. A May 4, 2023 video of a Tybee Town Hall meeting with insights on Orange Crush’s impact was previously unavailable on the city’s website before Connect Savannah requested and obtained it in March 2024. The video includes statements from island officials which foreshadow the plans now being prepared ahead of the annual HBCU spring break beach party.

Safety measures documented for this year’s Orange Crush include a vehicle checkpoint on Highway 80, increased use of new mobile license plate readers (LPRs) by Tybee Police officers, additional officers (at least 100 including TIPD) from four different outside agencies, strategic altering of locations for Tybee’s two current LPRs, as well as closing down many of the “side streets” which weave through the three-mile island with a population of roughly 3,100.

Many of these plans, and other island initiatives, will be used for the duration of Orange Crush, which is set for a return to Tybee on the weekend of April 19-21, 2024.

The preparation for that weekend goes back to the Town Hall held in May of 2023. Tybee’s City Manager, at the time, was Dr. Shawn Gillen. He was responsible that night for presenting the city’s response to hundreds of citizen submitted questions regarding a chaotic Orange Crush weekend on the island a few weeks prior, on April 21-23, 2023.

Gillen’s PowerPoint presentation was grouped into six categories of questions/concerns: Pre-Planning, Traffic, Legal, Communications, Community Safety, and Future Safety. He said the city used Orange Crush weekends from the years of 2017, 2018, 2019 to compare with the 2023 weekend in terms of tracking the number of cars and number of people.

The city uses traffic measuring cameras at the front of the island to track cars coming on and off the island. It purchases “people-tracking data” (a term Gillen used) from a company called Placer.ai, which uses cell phone tracking data.

Data collected by the City of Tybee Island shows that while traffic during Orange Crush 2023 is often cited as a primary reason for complaint from island officials and citizens alike, there were in fact fewer cars on the island that weekend than on other weekends last year, including non-holiday weekends and weekends immediately preceding Orange Crush 2023.

The number of traffic citations written during Orange Crush weekend last year was considerably fewer than the number written the following weekend.

However, the number of 911 calls far eclipsed other weekend totals.

Over the weekend of Friday, April 21 – Sunday, April 23, 2023, Tybee received 336 calls for service as 111,100 people came onto the island over the three-day period. Between 11 am and 4 pm on Saturday, April 22, Gillen said that roughly 7,000 cars passed onto Tybee. On Saturday alone, 48,700 people went to the island, according to the Placer.ai data. On Friday, 27,700 people came with 34,700 more coming Sunday.

“This was a different animal, something we’ve never seen before,” said Gillen of Orange Crush 2023. “This was unexpected and it was shocking. Nobody here is going to forget what happened on April 22, 2023. April 22 was a life-threatening event. It was like a hurricane.”

Traffic data from Tybee suggests the Orange Crush in 2023 was not unprecedented in terms of car traffic, however. Saturday, April 22 was  not even the busiest day of April 2023, let alone the island’s history.

Orange Crush weekend in 2023 brought 31,643 cars onto Tybee, according to city data. But more came for 2022 Orange Crush weekend (33,415). More cars also came on the Saturday of 2022 Orange Crush (12,861) than did on the Saturday in 2023 (11,565).

Still, Gillen said the 2022 Orange Crush wasn’t worth comparing to 2023, instead preferring to use the years of 2017-2019 for context because, according to him, the 2022 event was unusually small in attendance.

“The 2022 (Orange Crush) was nothing, a small event,” Gillen said. “In 2020, 2021, and 2022, those Orange Crush weekends were just non-events.”

When compared to other large events on Tybee, the Orange Crush weekend in 2023 may have brought more people than most others, but the number of cars was far from abnormal.

Two weeks prior to Orange Crush 2023, days before Easter Sunday, 34,734 cars came onto Tybee from April 5-7. The Friday of April 7 (12,685) was one of two days that month which brought more cars to Tybee than Orange Crush did on Saturday, April 22. Just seven days before Orange Crush 2023, 11,943 cars came for a non-holiday Saturday on April 15.

Tybee’s “Beach Bum” Parade in May 2023 had 11,294 cars coming on the island. On Memorial Day weekend in 2022 (May 27-30), there were 34,180 cars with 12,260 coming Saturday and 12,837 more on Sunday. Fireworks on July 3, 2022 brought 12,567 cars and the weekend of July 1-3, 2022 had 32,734 cars come.

In 2020 and 2021, the month of July brought a record number of cars onto Tybee. All nine weekends in July for those two years had more than 30,000 cars tallied. The weekend of July 3-5, 2020, even with the island’s official fireworks display canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 34,351 cars went to Tybee.

Seven days after Orange Crush, the following Saturday with law enforcement noticeably increased in numbers, only 7,119 cars drove to Tybee. For the entire weekend of April 28-30, 2023 (what Tybee refers to as “Peach Fest” or a “Second Orange Crush”), only 19,501 cars went to Tybee.

Tybee’s city website says the island has approximately 2,100 public parking spots.

Despite the number of people dramatically declining from Orange Crush 2023 to “Peach Fest” the following weekend, the number of citation violations registered by TIPD increased sharply. A citation report (see below) obtained by Connect Savannah through the Georgia Open Records Act shows the citation counts for the two weekends in detail.

It also shows the number of 911 calls from one weekend to the other.

From April 21-23, TIPD registered a total of 48 counts of citation violations. Six were golf cart violations and six for speeding. From April 28-30, a total of 1,692 counts of violation were registered. More than 300 were for speeding.

Those are the number of times Tybee cites a law being violated, not the number of times a citation is actually issued. On the first weekend, Orange Crush saw 41 “total events,” or citations written. There was one DUI arrest and 18 total arrests from TIPD, five being felonies.

There were five speeding tickets issued by TIPD.

On the weekend of April 21-23, 293 calls were made to 911 while the next weekend had 60. On April 22 alone, 184 calls were made to 911.

Despite claims to the contrary, the island never ran out of Narcan (the medicine used to help people overdosing on opioids and similar drugs) during Orange Crush 2023, according to Gillen. The rate of it being requested on April 22 forced Tybee Fire Chief Jeremy Kendrick to request more from Chatham Emergency Medical Agency (CEMA), said Gillen.

“We never reached a point where we were out of Narcan, or shorthanded with it. But we had to request more early on because of the pace at which these calls were coming in.”

Tybee’s plans to police the event this year also include methods for housing and feeding hundreds of officers on the island in an effort to prevent travel problems for those working Orange Crush weekend and don’t live on the island. Tybee Island Police Department (TIPD) Chief Tiffany Hayes presented her plans for policing Orange Crush this year during a presentation to the City Council on Jan. 24, 2024.

She handed each of the council members a packet of prep material requested by councilmember Tony Ploughe. It included relevant historical data for Orange Crush and other large officially unpermitted events on Tybee, dates for past and upcoming meetings with outside law enforcement agencies, as well as information on traffic and safety measures for Orange Crush 2024.

Hayes’ document was organized into 25 questions about Orange Crush and other large events, and the questions were submitted for council by Ploughe. That document was obtained in February by Connect Savannah through the Georgia Open Records Act.

“You will see a road safety checkpoint, but we’re not releasing the date for that just yet,” Hayes told council. “It’ll come later, for safety reasons. But there will be one over the (April 19-21) weekend. I reached out to Georgia State Patrol, DNR (Department of Natural Resources), the (Chatham County) Sheriff’s Department and Motor Compliance. We met with them (on Jan. 23). Everyone is in agreement.”

“They are going to send the same number (of officers) that we saw during Peach Fest (April 28-30, 2023) and Turnt Island (June 30-July 3, 2023). We’ll have emergency cones set up and motor compliance will be in those. Georgia State Patrol will be handling traffic. The Sheriff’s Department will be with canine units in the neighborhoods, so that Tybee officers are freed up to ride calls.”

She identified Tre “Britian” Wigfall as “our promoter” of Orange Crush. Hayes wrote out the specific traffic measures that will be in place this year.

“Traffic will be monitored throughout the shifts,” Hayes wrote. “The Shift Supervisor will stay in contact with the Parking Services Supervisor in the event any parking lots need to be CLOSED or in the event of gridlock. Extra personnel may be used to assist with the flow of traffic at intersections.”

“Traffic protocols for holiday weekends will be in effect with barriers strategically placed from 15th Street to 17th Street from 04/19-04/21. Specifically, on 4/20/2024, barricades will be placed at the cross streets on Butler Avenue, to aid in keeping traffic out of the neighborhoods and flowing outbound traffic on Butler Avenue to Highway 80.”

Hayes also discussed a plan for Tybee Short Term Rental and hotel/motel owners to work with the city in limiting the lodging for Orange Crush 2024 weekend to police officers needing places to stay between shifts.

This could mean potential Orange Crush visitors would have fewer options for overnight lodging on the island.

“We met with owners of STRs, Main Street companies, and hotel/motel (owners) at my request (on Jan. 23). They are fully aware of what’s coming and fully aware of what we’re going to do. They said they hadn’t seen any uptick in any of their rentals, but to be honest with you, they said they are not going to rent. They’re just going to block them. So, no problem there,” Hayes said.
“We did ask them for rentals for our officers, like we’ve done in the past. They’re going to get back to us on that. I don’t think it’s going to be an issue, because it is in April. If you recall, last year, during ‘Turnt Island,’ (June 30-July 3) we did have to pay for housing officers and that’s because it was July Fourth weekend. That’s a busy weekend for (STR owners) and they don’t want to have to give up their property. I fully understand why. So, I’m not going to have a dollar amount for housing just yet until we get a total number of what’s going to be given to us.”

Gillen said in his May 4, 2023 presentation that 110 officers were housed on Tybee for free last year during “Peach Fest” on April 28-30. The city paid to feed them, with local churches and citizen groups donating food to aid in the effort.

Michelle Owens took over in her current role of Interim City Manager after Gillen resigned in September of 2023. Both Owens and Hayes were at Gillen’s presentation in May.

Owens says the costs for Tybee over Orange Crush weekend in 2023 amounted to nearly $200,000. She cited lodging as one of the expenses incurred by the city during Orange Crush 2023, despite Gillen’s claim that officers were housed for free.

“Expanded public safety measures cost the city $187,520. That cost included overtime wages for city police and fire rescue staff, lodging, meals, additional ambulance service, security fencing, extra lighting, and portable bathrooms,” wrote Owens on Feb. 1 in an email exchange with Connect Savannah.

“To prepare for events being promoted for April 19-21, 2024, we will have the assistance of other law enforcement agencies including Georgia State Patrol, Chatham County Sheriff, Chatham County Police and Department of Natural Resources Officers.”

“Many local lodging companies, churches and private citizens have assisted by volunteering to provide lodging and meals for visiting officers and other on-duty staff. The city is truly grateful for their assistance as this will help defray the city’s expense of keeping Tybee safe during these types of mass gatherings.”

Hayes spoke briefly then about her feelings regarding Orange Crush on May 4, 2023. She said a 2018 U.S. Department of Justice mediation agreement between the City of Tybee Island and the Concerned Citizens Group of Tybee Island hindered TIPD’s ability to enforce the law in April of 2023.

The 2018 agreement (see below) states that “the participants in the mediation have agreed to support the recommendation to the City Council that the city develop across the board objective criteria that will be applied equally for all holiday and/or tourism events, permitted and unpermitted.”

“As far as the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office goes, we did not call them in because of the DOJ agreement,” said Hayes.

“We did, however, backdoor it to have more (Chatham County) deputies on the pier because we knew there were going to be large crowds. The Assistant Chief (for Chatham County) was even on the pier for both weekends (Orange Crush and April 28-30).”

“The Monday following Orange Crush, my words to the City Manager, at 8:15 am Monday morning, my words to him were ‘I’m not doing this again. I’m calling in everyone.’ Y’all can address that DOJ agreement, but for me and the public safety, and the safety of my officers, I am not having my hands tied by this agreement again.”

That was met with applause by the standing-room-only crowd of citizens in attendance.

Gillen echoed a similar sentiment.

“It limited what we could do,” he said of the mediation agreement. “I’ve talked to the council and the mayor (Shirley Sessions), and I think we all agree, the resolution (in 2018) is no longer valid. Next year, we will take a much more aggressive approach. It’s going to look like the Fourth of July in terms of traffic control and the number of law enforcement we have on the island.”

This article appears in Connect Savannah I February 2024.