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MYRTLE BEACH (WPDE) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency decided two years ago, that it didn't like the way Myrtle Beach hotels winterize their indoor pools.

Since then, local tourism officials have made many trips to Washington, and now believe they're close to solving the pool problem.

What's now an outdoor pool at the Patricia Grand Resort, becomes an indoor pool each winter when the hotel encloses it in glass. Many Grand Strand hotels have been doing that for decades.

But in 2008, FEMA decided that the practice is hazardous, apparently because glass walls could become projectiles in a hurricane. If FEMA doesn't allow hotels to have indoor pools, Patricia Grand's president says it would be devastating to the hotel's winter business. "All the people who come during the weekends in the wintertime would not come back anymore if they don't have anywhere to go and have a swimming pool available to them," said Frans Mustert, Oceana Resorts.

Hotel operators and the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce have managed to hold FEMA off for two years while trying to get the agency to change its mind. But that hasn't worked, so they asked Congressman Jim Clyburn to write a law forcing a change and that has met with more success. "We're getting closer now we think to actually getting some legislation inserted into the federal Flood Insurance Program, that will allow the pools to be enclosed or at least force FEMA to reevaluate this decision," said Brad Dean with the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce.

Dean said they've tried to point out that hotels in other beach cities have similar pool enclosures and they haven't been targeted by FEMA. That argument didn't change the agency's mind. "Everyone we've talked to, in Washington and here at home agrees, this makes no sense, we need to get this law changed," Dean said.

Congress is working on a rewrite of the Flood Insurance Program, to include a change in the pool enclosure law.

That bill is expected to come up in the House later this month.

The pool enclosure issue affects at least 25 hotels in the Myrtle Beach area.

(Story courtesy WACH Fox's sister station WPDE in Myrtle Beach.)

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