SAVANNAH, Ga. – Georgia authorities said Sunday they are investigating the “catastrophic failure” of a dock gangway that collapsed and killed seven people on an island off the state’s Atlantic seacoast, where crowds gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.
According to the McIntosh County coroner, four of the seven people killed in the collapse were from Jacksonville. Among the other three victims, one was from Atlanta, another from “the Atlanta area” and another from Darien, Georgia.
The victims were identified as:
- Isaiah Thomas, 79, from Jacksonville
- Carlotta Mcintosh, 93, from Jacksonville
- Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75, from Jacksonville
- Cynthia Alynn Gibbs, 74, from Jacksonville
- Charles League Houston, 77, from Darien, Ga.
- Queen Welch, 76, Atlanta
- William Lee Johnson Jr., 73, from the Atlanta area
Houston was a chaplain for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. He served 40 years as an ordained minister and was a volunteer firefighter in Plains, Georgia.
Daisy Hicks, a friend of Mcintosh, told News4JAX she witnessed the events unfold, and that the moments keep replaying in her mind.
“When I looked out at the water you couldn’t see nothing but people’s heads...They had walkers and wheelchairs. All those wheelchairs and walkers were going down the river,” she said.
Hicks said she plans to go to therapy after observing the calamity.
News4JAX also spoke with Antoinette Jackson, whose 77-year-old mother took a trip to Georgia for the Gullah Geechee celebration in Sapelo Island with the victims of the tragic incident.
“She’s a little better...she’s still emotionally exhausted...she’s just been sharing her experience with us,” Jackson said.
First responders say as many as 40 people were on the dock gangway when it collapsed Saturday on Sapelo Island, sending at least 20 people tumbling into the water.
“It is a structural failure. There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that, but we’ll see what the investigation unfolds,” Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon said at a news conference a day after the tragedy.
The gangway, installed in 2021, connected an outer dock where people board the ferry to another dock onshore.
It gave way as an estimated 700 people visited the largely unspoiled Sapelo Island, about 60 miles south of Savannah, for its annual fall Cultural Day event spotlighting Hogg Hummock, home to a few dozen Black residents. The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded after the Civil War by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.
Small coastal communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South — known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia — are scattered from North Carolina to Florida, including on Sapelo Island. Scholars say their separation from the mainland caused residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills such as basket weaving.
Rabon said his agency had extra staff working, 40 people total, on Saturday because of crowds for the celebration. After the collapse, the U.S. Coast Guard and local sheriff’s and fire departments rushed to the island to help, using boats and helicopters. No roads link Sapelo Island to the mainland.
Vice President Kamala Harris addressed the disaster over the weekend.
“My heart as I know for all of us goes out to those who are impacted. And I thank all the first responders who acted so quickly,” Harris said. “Our administration has been in touch with state and local officials to offer any needed support. And I know on behalf of all of us here that we pray for all of those who are affected.”
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has not responded.
The Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society released this statement.
“The Sapelo Island community is grateful for the outpouring of love and support and we ask that you join us in praying for the families of those who were impacted by this tragedy.”
Ferry worker: ‘I wish I could have done more’
Ed Grovner was working as a senior mate on one of the ferries taking people between the island and the mainland. He told The Associated Press the ferry pulled up to the dock a short time after the collapse and crew members saw orange lifejackets bobbing in the water that had been tossed in to help those who had fallen. Grovner said he and other crew members tried to help a man and a woman, with someone administering CPR, but they were already dead.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Grovner said. “My wife said I was sleeping, I was hollering in my sleep, saying, ‘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.”
Sapelo Island residents in 2015 sued McIntosh County and the state of Georgia in federal court, arguing they lacked basic services including facilities and resources for medical emergencies. In a 2022 settlement, county officials agreed to build a helicopter pad on the island.
Residents said that still hasn’t happened. Patrick Zoucks, county manager for McIntosh County, did not immediately respond to an email message seeking comment.
The ferry dock was rebuilt in 2021 after Georgia officials reached a settlement in the same lawsuit, in which island residents complained that state-operated ferry boats and docks failed to meet federal accessibility standards for people with disabilities.
JR Grovner said he complained to one of the ferry captains about four months ago that the gangway to the ferry didn’t seem sturdy enough, but nothing happened. Rabon said he wasn’t aware of any complaints being made.
Human chain rescue
Resident Reginald Hall was among those who charged into the water, where an outgoing tide created a strong current pulling victims toward the ocean.
Hall said he was handed a 2-year-old child and passed her along a chain of bystanders to shore, roughly 60 yards away. He then helped carry blanket-wrapped bodies.
“It was chaotic,” Hall said. “It was horrible.”
JR Grovner loaded an injured woman into the back of a pickup truck and drove her to a field where a helicopter was evacuating victims. The ground was thick with tall grasses that camouflaged holes dug by wild boars, he said.
None of the seven dead were island residents, Rabon said. And Hall, and JR Grovner said they weren’t aware of any family members of island residents among the dead.
Why did it fail?
A team of investigators with expertise in engineering and accident reconstruction — with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation — was on the site Sunday to begin probing why the walkway failed.
In 1996, Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, the official list of treasured U.S. historic sites.
However, the community’s population has been shrinking for decades, and some families have sold their land to outsiders who built vacation homes. Tax hikes and local zoning changes have been met with protests and lawsuits by Hogg Hummock residents and landowners. The zoning changes approved in 2023 doubled the size of homes allowed in Hogg Hummock, prompting residents' fears that larger homes would lead to tax increases that could force them to sell land their families have held for generations.
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Associated Press writer Emily Wagster Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.