Security increases for G-8 summit
ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. — Military aircraft drowned out the sound of surf, gunboats cruised a historic riverfront and Secret Service agents guarded a beach road as security tightened with President Bush’s arrival for this week’s summit of world leaders.
Concrete barriers, metal fencing and checkpoints were put into place around key buildings and routes in final preparations for the Group of Eight summit starting today on adjoining Sea Island.
Thousands of police officers and National Guard troops patrolled roadways and bridges.
U.S. officials have said the summit could be one of several high-profile U.S. events targeted this summer by al Qaeda terrorists.
Anti-globalization protests, on the other hand, are likely to be mostly low-key.
“If there were going to be a terrorist, I’m sure they would have come here long before all the security arrived last week,” said Kathy Tharpe, who operates a fruit-and-vegetable stand next to the St. Simons Island airport.
While some island residents have left for the week, Tharpe plans to keep her business open unless her daily deliveries of produce no longer are allowed onto the island.
In 1999 during World Trade Organization meetings, a handful of anti-globalization demonstrators set fires in the streets of Seattle, and at the 2001 Group of Eight summit in Genoa, Italy, police fatally shot one demonstrator and arrested 300 others.
Several protest groups planned to meet Monday at a seaside park on St. Simons Island and at a community college in nearby Brunswick, Ga., on the mainland. Both gatherings were being billed as nonviolent festivals featuring music and speakers. Protesters in both locations planned to hand out pamphlets to local residents and police.
Police have warned that traffic will be snarled by military checkpoints throughout the area. Only those with high-level credentials are being allowed onto Sea Island, the secluded resort where the leaders will gather today through Thursday, and where President Bush arrived Sunday evening from his D-Day trip to Europe.
Somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 federal, state and local officers are on duty at Sea Island, St. Simons Island, Brunswick and 80 miles north in Savannah, Ga., where thousands of journalists are staying.
In Savannah, National Guard troops in sand-colored Humvees began cruising the cobble-stone streets and oak-shaded squares of the historic downtown while helicopters hovered overhead.
Coast Guard boats with mounted machine guns patrolled the Savannah River between the summit’s media center on Hutchinson Island and the city’s riverfront promenade of oyster bars and T-shirt shops.
“It’s a little off-putting for people visiting,” said Liz Demos, owner of a downtown home-furnishings store. “It’s hard to enjoy the city when there are Humvees passing you.”
On the four-mile causeway linking Brunswick to St. Simons Island, the military started searching vehicles Saturday.
“Some of these security measures are visible,” said Secret Service spokesman Thomas Mazur. “However, many of them are not.”