People fleeing Charley got out of Myrtle Beach faster than a typical Sunday afternoon, as the first planned highway lane reversal since Hurricane Floyd went incredibly smoothly.

The S.C. Highway Patrol reported one fender bender in the 11 hours Friday and Saturday outbound traffic was routed down the inbound lanes of U.S. 501. Evacuation traffic moved at an average of nearly 50 mph, said Dick Jenkins, traffic engineer with the S.C. Department of Transportation.

Gov. Mark Sanford ordered a mandatory evacuation of areas east of U.S. 17-Business in Horry and Georgetown counties at 6 p.m. Friday. Workers from a half-dozen state agencies jumped into action to halt incoming traffic on U.S. 501 and turn it into a four-lane road out of Myrtle Beach by 8 p.m.

“It was planning and partnerships,” said Lt. Mike Bowman of the Highway Patrol. “We do exercises twice a year with each agency, and it paid off.”

The planning and practices grew out of the fallout of the evacuation nightmare of Hurricane Floyd in 1999. In that larger-scale evacuation, drivers spent as much as 18 hours on the road to travel from Charleston to Columbia, in part because the state delayed reversing lanes on I-26.

This time, things went much smoother. While fewer people fled from Charley than from Floyd, state officials believe they also had a better plan in 2004.

“We took everything out to the road during practices,” Jenkins said. “When we all got together for the real thing, we knew what to do.”

Lanes were reversed along a 23-mile stretch from S.C. 22 to Conway. While there was a bottleneck where U.S. 17 meets U.S. 501 in Myrtle Beach, traffic moved steadily once it reached S.C. 22, Jenkins said.

At the peak, nearly 3,200 cars per hour were moving on the four lanes of U.S. 501. The maximum capacity when the road is only two lanes is about 2,200 cars per hour, Jenkins said.

The traffic thinned in the early morning hours, and incoming cars were allowed back on U.S. 501 about 7 a.m.

Myrtle Beach Mayor Mark McBride said that while the evacuation went well, the last-minute decisions would have created problems if a storm called for a wider-scale evacuation.

“We were bringing people from Beaufort to here to help direct traffic,” said McBride, who complained that state budget cuts have reduced the number of troopers available for traffic patrol. “We could have reversed (U.S. 501) closer in to the city, but there was not enough personnel.”

McBride also said communications between city and state officials were not as smooth as they should have been. “You can’t wait until 90 minutes before an evacuation to work with the municipalities.”

Reach Holleman at (803) 771-8366 or jholleman@thestate.com.