Excitement is building around the state of North Carolina, and especially in Chapel Hill, as fans are awaiting the tip off of Syracuse and North Carolina in the Final Four in Houston on Saturday night.
While the game is going on in Texas, many revelers – from Chapel Hill and beyond – will set up a satellite watch party on Franklin Street to cheer on the Tar Heels.
That large crowd means a big job is in store for the Chapel Hill Police Department.
“When we talk about planning for a Final Four weekend, we equate it to working two Halloween-scale events in the course of 48 hours,” Chapel Hill Police chief Chris Blue says recalling the annual massive migration to Chapel Hill in late October.
Blue adds the department is fortunate to have a template in place for working these large events but concedes “the intensity level goes up when you’re doing two of them back-to-back.”
Blue says that police are taking precautions ahead of Saturday night’s matchup between the Tar Heels and the Orange, although a potential celebration of a national championship would likely draw a much larger crowd.
“We do work very hard to protect our neighborhoods immediately adjacent to downtown,” Blue says. “There’ll be parking monitors trying to keep those neighborhoods from having visitors taking up the resident parking.”
Blue adds that, while he expects plenty of revelers to come in from outside of Chapel Hill, this type of celebration is “an event that is most-easily attended by people who are already here in the community.”
Blue says that events where thousands of residents and visitors are going to be in one confined space “always makes us nervous” from a public safety standpoint, but he adds “they generally go so well and our attendees are so respectful and well-behaved, for lack of a better term.”
Blue said that a major concern for police and other emergency responders is bonfires being set on Franklin Street. Blue asked that those coming to celebrate refrain from starting those fires and cooperate with law enforcement for a smooth evening.
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