By Russ Bynum | Related Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Authorities stated no less than seven folks have been killed Saturday when a part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, the place crowds had gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee neighborhood of Black slave descendants.
A number of folks have been taken to hospitals, and crews from the U.S. Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Fireplace Division, the Georgia Division of Pure Sources and others have been looking the water, in keeping with Pure Sources spokesperson Tyler Jones. The company operates the dock and ferry boats that transport folks between the island and the mainland.
Jones stated a gangway on the dock collapsed, sending folks plunging into the water.
“There have been seven fatalities confirmed,” Jones stated. “There have been multiple people transported to area hospitals, and we are continuing to search the water for individuals.”
Helicopters and boats with side-scanning sonar have been used within the search, in keeping with a Division of Pure Sources assertion. The reason for the collapse is being investigated.
Among the many lifeless was a chaplain for the state company, Jones stated.
He stated there have been no less than 20 folks on the gangway when it collapsed. The gangway related an outer dock the place folks board the ferry to a different dock onshore.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp stated he and his household have been “heartbroken by today’s tragedy on Sapelo Island.”
“As state and local first responders continue to work this active scene, we ask that all Georgians join us in praying for those lost, for those still in harm’s way, and for their families,” Kemp stated on the social platform X.
Sapelo Island is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Savannah, reachable from the mainland by boat.
The lethal collapse occurred as island residents, members of the family and vacationers gathered for Cultural Day, an annual fall occasion spotlighting the island’s tiny neighborhood of Hogg Hummock, house to some dozen Black residents. The neighborhood of grime roads and modest houses was based after the Civil Struggle by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.
Hogg Hummock’s slave descendants are extraordinarily shut, having been “bonded by family, bonded by history and bonded by struggle,” stated Roger Lotson, the one Black member of the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners. His district consists of Sapelo Island.
“Everyone is family, and everyone knows each other,” Lotson stated. “In any tragedy, especially like this, they are all one. They’re all united. They all feel the same pain and the same hurt.”
In 1996, Hogg Hummock, often known as Hog Hammock, was positioned on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations, the official record of america’ treasured historic websites.
However the neighborhood’s inhabitants has been shrinking for many years, and a few households have offered their land to outsiders who constructed trip houses.
Tax will increase and zoning modifications by the native authorities in McIntosh County have been met by protests and lawsuits by Hogg Hummock residents and landowners. They’ve been battling for the previous yr to undo zoning modifications accredited by county commissioners in September 2023 that doubled the dimensions of houses allowed in Hogg Hummock.
Residents say they concern bigger houses will result in tax will increase that might power them to promote land their households have held for generations.
