AYNOR - Mary Collins knows firsthand how a highway can split a family farm into unmanageable pieces of land.

When it was built, U.S. 501 split her grandfather's farm in half, and now one potential route for Interstate 73 threatens to split the land again, she said Tuesday at the third public-information session at Aynor High School.

Looking at a half-mile-wide orange line on a map, Collins pointed and said that if the line is where the highway goes, it will plow through a tobacco farm handed down through generations.

"My granddaddy built that house with the lumber off the farm and the house is already too close to [U.S.] 501 for me," she said. "He'd roll over in his grave if he knew this was about to happen there."

It neared standing room only as 620 residents poured into the school's cafeteria for three hours to question proposed corridors of the 400-
foot-wide highway. Most came with concerns about how they would be affected by the interstate thoroughfare that will link the Grand Strand with communities as far away as Michigan.

Collins said that because of shrinking tobacco quotas, she and her family tend to vegetable gardens on the 12 acres split off by U.S. 501 these days, but the land is an important piece of family history, as is true for other Aynor area residents.

"They're going to take land from us that our great-great-great-grandparents worked hard to have to give to us," said Melissa Nobles, a Cool Spring resident whose family farm also lies in the path of a line on a map. "We have the opportunity to have land to give to our children and their children, but not if they come in and take it for the road."

Cool Spring and Aynor residents made their displeasure for the road known during a public meeting in Myrtle Beach earlier this month. Horry County officials petitioned highway planners to meet with residents in these communities to give them a better understanding of the highway project.

"This is where the maximum impact is going to be," Aynor Town Councilman Craig Morrison said Tuesday. "Aynor is going to be affected more than any other town in Horry County because this is going to be ground zero one way or another."

Aynor Mayor John Dawsey said he was glad residents turned out but that state Department of Transportation officials and others planning the highway should have started their talks in Aynor.

As residents greeted one another with talk of family and friends, most discussions turned serious when they walked around the room and stared at the colored lines on maps and drawings of the interstate.

"We need a road bad, but I don't know where they'll put it," said Louise Doyle, a Marion County resident who was relieved not to find a proposed route near her family home. "Somebody will have to give for the road, and there's a lot of people worried because it goes right to their front door."

Jack Cayton lives in Marion County now, works in Conway and recently purchased property within one quarter of a mile of a proposed route with intentions of building his family home there. He is reconsidering his plans to build off Truluck Johnson Road because he doesn't want an entrance ramp near his front yard.

"The access points are as important to me as where the road goes," he said. "Roads like this change the complexion of a little town overnight."

Discussions also involved a proposed route south of Aynor and U.S. 501 through a more natural environment, but not everyone agrees on that route.

Horry County Councilman John Boyd said he would like to see the route moved south of U.S. 501 because "anywhere near 501 or [S.C.] 319 just disrupts too many people."

Nancy Cave with the Coastal Conservation League disagrees because the move would disrupt the environment too much.

"Our position has been that they should use existing routes as much as possible," she said. "It's not to be determined by politics."

No matter the route, Nobles said she doesn't see the need for another highway going to the beach.

"I don't understand why they're trying to get more and more ways to Myrtle Beach," she said. "When they get there they can't do anything with them and it's a big traffic jam."

What's next

Comments will help planners determine the S.C. route of the road, which is expected to cost $2 billion. So far, the only funding approved is $3 million for environmental studies. DOT officials say that if they get the funds, the road can be finished in 2014.