NEWS RELEASE

March 2, 2018

For Immediate Release

City Holds First St. Patrick’s Day News Conference

SAVANNAH, GA (March 1, 2018) — Today the City of Savannah and the Savannah Police Department held a news conference to provide a general overview of logistics for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day festival.

City agencies including Sanitation, Traffic Engineering, Parking, Public Communications, Savannah Fire, Savannah Police, Emergency Management and Code Enforcement have been meeting together with the Office of Special Events to create a coordinated plan of service delivery.

Special Events Administrator Eddie Grant highlighted the coordination of many partners saying, “Everyone in the City is coming together to work on this, it is an all hands on deck operation. Our business partners in the Waterfront Association, City Market, SCAD and the Downtown Business Association will be working closely with city staff leading up to and through St. Patrick’s Day to ensure everyone is safe, downtown stays clean and everyone has a good time.”

Sergeant Dana Purvis of the Savannah Police Special Events Office assured the public of heightened security, saying,” Due to events around the world and nationally, we have chosen to provide extra security during this festival.”

Community Connections Director Sean Brandon, whose department heads up parking, encouraged citizens and visitors to visit the City’s web page for information on pre-sale parking opportunities and festival transportation information.

Parking Services is currently pre-selling 800 garage spaces that can be reserved by calling the Parking Services Department and has partnered with Chatham Area Transit (CAT) to provide bus shuttles throughout the festival.

Brandon said “we want to emphasize to folks who plan on visiting parking facilities that they will be open but you need to get there early and you may be held in the garage for some period of time after the parade. Please be patient as staff works to re-open roads.” But before getting into your car, Brandon asked downtown visitors to consider using the shuttles CAT will be offering during the festival.

‘We want to see large numbers of people on buses, using those options before they decide to get into a car.” said Brandon.

This press conference is the first of many being held by the City in preparation for St. Patrick’s Day. “We will have more conferences like this to push out information to the public as often as we can,” said Grant.

For all City information regarding St. Patrick’s Day visit: http://www.savannahga.gov/stpats