So many vehicles

Farm Tech Days traffic flow, safety required multiple agencies

High volumes of cars, trucks, and various other vehicles made their way to Farm Technology Days held this past week from July 12-14. Coming along on major highways from all directions toward the site just south of Loyal, both visitors and those just passing by were guided along their way through a large, coordinated effort by many agencies and organizations across the area, making sure the largest agricultural event of the year was also a safe one.

Although exact numbers of just how many people descended on Loyal during the three-day event have not been released, the high volumes of traffic that could be found on County Highway K and other major intersections leading to Roehl Acres were far beyond normal levels for most hours during Farm Technology Days. However, through the efforts of members of the Clark County Sheriff’s Department, Clark County Highway Department, the Loyal Police, Fire and EMS Departments, along with the assistance of other emergency crews and law enforcement from neighboring cities, towns and counties, and volunteers at Farm Technology Days, issues with traffic were minimal throughout the event.

“Behind the scenes there is not really much to say,” said Clark County Sheriff Scott Haines. “There were a couple incidents, but they were minor. There was one vehicle that was locked and we had a missing child and a missing adult. They were both resolved quickly, the missing child was found just minutes after the call came in. Those were the only incidents we had during the whole show. I think overall the traffic and parking went very well.”

The work done by the various groups in charge of directing traffic and providing safety and security to visitors did not begin right before Farm Technology Days started, Haines said, but rather was a long process started more than a year before.

“There is a lot of preparation that went into that,” he said. “There were a lot of moving parts. Along with law enforcement we worked with the Highway Department, the EMS, Fire and with Zoning. We all got together to figure out the regional mapping and figure out the best route for all of the traffic ... Traffic is always an issue with events like this. You need to be able to get people off the roads and into a parking lot and also have an exit plan. It definitely was a team effort, this took years of planning.”

In the weeks leading up to Farm Technology Days, signage was posted on roadways leading to the show by the Clark County Highway Department to prepare for the influx of traffic. Additional signs were also put up on roads during the days of the event itself to further direct traffic and ease the strain on the members of law enforcement spread across the county to direct traffic.

“We had officers spread out all over the county during Farm Tech Days,” said Haines. “There was signage provided by the Highway Department, that helped us out, but we still needed to be out in places. For example, the Highway H and K intersection was one that we needed to be at. We tried to put officers at strategic locations. We were concerned about traffic backing up into Loyal.”

In addition to providing help to direct traffic, Haines said another role played by the Clark County Sheriff’s Department during the days leading up to, during and after Farm Technology Days was providing security for the area. With so much manpower required, he said the Sheriff’s Department received mutual aid from neighboring counties to allow the event to be properly covered and still allow the department to continue doing its regular duties.

“Our responsibility included safety for the Farm Tech Days site,” he said. “We were coming in from 9:30 at night to six in the morning the week before, during and after. We were also responsible for traffic flow, we had to have mutual aid come in and we got help from the surrounding counties to help us with the event. The most important thing is to have enough resources to be able to help. Even with an event like this, we still have to cover the county. We still have our normal assignments and duties to take care of and that is for everyone, law enforcement, fire and EMS.”

Despite the challenges that were involved with making sure everyone came and went from Farm Technology Days safely, Haines said everything turned out alright in the end. That was only possible, he said, because of the hard work put in by so many people across the county.

“A majority of the comments I heard back on our work were positive,” he said. “They seemed pleased. All the people that were involved with this should get credit for the work that they did. Captain Leah Sterry and Captain Todd Tessman, members of our agency, helped with the parking, we also had a lot of volunteers that helped us with the parking. The Highway Department, Tom Clark, Brian Duell and their staff, they had guys out late at night and made sure that if there were any issues they would be there to help. We couldn’t have done this without the mutual aid or the volunteers who helped us.”