The South Carolina Floodwater Commission and Coastal Carolina University are installing the initial blocks smart reef system capable of gathering marine and weather information.

The system — a series of concrete blocks housing environmental sensors — will be installed on the Ron McManus Memorial Reef, approximately five nautical miles from the south jetty at Little River inlet.

CCU said in a statement that data generated by the smart reef will become publicly available as part of the South East Atlantic Econet — a system of 100 weather stations across the Southeast that feeds National Weather Service modeling.

The launch takes place today from Myrtle Beach with Paul Gayes, director of CCU’s Burroughs and Chapin Center for Marine and Wetland Studies, and Floodwater Commission chairman Tom Mullikin, who will join U.S. Rep. Tom Rice, R-S.C., among other dignitaries.