SAVANNAH, Ga. — Georgian authorities said on Sunday they were investigating the “catastrophic failure” of one dock corridor that collapsed and killed seven people on an island off the state’s Atlantic coast, where crowds gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s small Gullah-Geechee community of black slave descendants.
“It is a structural failure. There would be very, very little maintenance required on such an aluminum gangway, but we’ll see what the research turns out,” Walter Rabon, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, said at a news conference a day after the Sapelo tragedy Island.
He said three people were in critical condition in hospital after Saturday’s collapse.
The gangway, installed in 2021, made way as an estimated 700 people visited the largely pristine Sapelo Island, about 60 miles (nearly 100 kilometers) south of Savannah, for the annual fall Cultural Day event, featuring Hogg Hummock in the spotlight, home to several dozen black residents. . The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded after the Civil War by former slaves from Thomas Spalding’s cotton plantation.
Rabon said “more than 40 people” were on the gangplank when at least 20 fell into the water. The gangway, installed in 2021, connected an outside dock where people board the ferry to another dock on land.
Rabon said his agency had extra staff on Saturday due to the crowds, a total of 40 people. After the collapse, the U.S. Coast Guard and local sheriffs and fire departments rushed to the island to help, using boats and helicopters. There are no roads connecting Sapelo Island to the mainland.
Ed Grovner worked as a senior mate on one of the ferries that transported people between the island and the mainland. He told The Associated Press that the ferry docked shortly after the collapse and crew members saw orange life jackets floating in the water that had been thrown in to help the fallen. Grovner said he and other crew members tried to help a man and a woman while someone administered CPR, but they were already dead.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Grovner said. “My wife said I was sleeping, I screamed in my sleep and said, ‘I’m going to save you.’ I’m going to save you. I’m going to get you.’” He sighed deeply and said, “I wish I could have done more.”
Small coastal communities descend from enslaved island populations in the south – known as Gullahor Geechee in Georgia – are spread from North Carolina to Florida, including on Sapelo Island. Scholars say their separation from the mainland allowed residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills like basket weaving.
Hogg Hummock resident Jazz Watts was at the festival site, where visitors gathered for quilt-making and fishing net-making demonstrations while sampling island foods such as smoked mullet and gumbo, when news of the collapse spread.
Watts said that when he arrived, he saw first responders and civilians pulling people out of the water and trying to administer CPR and other aid. Some of the dead were covered with blankets.
“It’s devastating,” Watts said. “When you see people being carried who are wrapped in blankets and have died; It is traumatizing for everyone.”
Resident Reginald Hall was among those who rushed into the water, where an outgoing tide created a strong current that pulled victims toward the ocean.
Hall said he handed over a two-year-old child and led her past a chain of bystanders to the shore, about 180 feet away. He then helped carry bodies wrapped in blankets.
“It was chaotic,” Hall said. “It was terrible.”
JR Grovner loaded an injured woman into the back of a pickup truck and drove her to a field where a helicopter evacuated the victims. The ground was thick with tall grass that camouflaged holes dug by wild boars, he said.
Sapelo Island residents sued McIntosh County and the state of Georgia in federal court in 2015, arguing they lacked basic services, including facilities and resources for medical emergencies. In a 2022 settlement, county officials agreed to build a helipad on the island.
Grovner, Hall and Watts all said that still hasn’t happened. McIntosh County District Manager Patrick Zoucks did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment.
The ferry dock was rebuilt in 2021 after Georgia officials settled the same lawsuit, in which islanders complained that state-operated ferries and docks did not meet federal accessibility standards for people with disabilities.
Grovner said he complained to one of the ferry captains about four months ago that the aisle to the ferry didn’t seem sturdy enough, but nothing happened. Rabon said he was not aware of any complaints.
Watts said a private health care provider planned to open a clinic in a county-owned building that had long occupied the Sapelo Island Community Center. But the deal fell apart when county commissioners decided to lease the space for use as a restaurant.
None of the seven people killed were islanders, Rabon said. And Watts, Hall and JR Grovner said they were not aware of any family members of islanders among the dead.
Rabon identified one of the dead as Charles Houston Jr., a chaplain for the Natural Resources Agency.
A team of investigators with expertise in engineering and accident reconstruction — with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation — was on the scene Sunday to investigate why the walkway failed.
In 1996, Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, was placed on the floor National Register of Historic Placesthe official list of valuable historic sites in the US.
But the community’s population has been shrinking for decades, and some families have sold their land to outsiders who built vacation homes. Tax increases and local zoning changes have led to protests and lawsuits by Hogg Hummock residents and landowners. The zoning plan changes The plan, approved in 2023, doubled the size of homes allowed in Hogg Hummock, raising residents’ fears that larger homes would lead to tax increases that could force them to sell land their families have owned for generations.
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Associated Press writer Emily Wagster Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.