Sapelo island dock collapses after boat allegedly hit gangway sending attendees for event honoring black slave descendants into the water. 7 dead, 20 injured. Georgia agency refutes claim boat caused tragedy.
Seven people were killed when part of a ferry dock collapsed on a remote island nature reserve off Georgia along with numerous others injured.
About 20 people were on a gangway to an outer dock where passengers board the ferry, when it crashed into the water off Sapelo Island in Georgia.
At the time attendees had gathered an event honoring Black slave descendants, authorities said.
Cause of ferry dock collapsing remains under dispute
Tyler Jones, a spokesman for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which operates the ferry, said it was not yet known how the gangway collapsed.
The gangway at the dock collapsed and sent people plummeting into the water, Jones said.
‘The gangway has been secured on Sapelo Island and the incident is currently under investigation,’ Jones told press.
The dock was under pressure from crowds during Cultural Day, a celebration among the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of black slave descendants.
Atlanta News First reported the gangway collapsing after a boat reportedly hitting the dock.
Jones nevertheless counted reports citing a boat crashing into the gangway.
‘There was no collision with a boat or anything else,’ Jones said. ‘The thing just collapsed. We don’t know why.’
Among the dead was a chaplain from a state agency the nypost reported. Eight people were taken to hospitals, at least six of them with critical injuries.
Community rocked
The tragedy is hitting local residents hard said Roger Lotson, a member of the local McIntosh County Board of Commissioners.
‘Everyone is family, and everyone knows each other,’ Lotson said. ‘In any tragedy, especially like this, they are all one. They’re all united. They all feel the same pain and the same hurt.’
Hogg Hummock was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.
‘That dock was less than a year old,’ Lotson told Georgia public broadcasting, and speculated that aluminum ramp and not the dock was damaged.
‘Even if the ferry hit the dock, you’d think the construction requirements would be that it could sustain that,’ Lotson reportedly said.
Sapleo Island is about 60 miles south of Savannah and is reachable from the mainland by boat.
The US Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Fire Department, the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and others are searching for survivors.
Rescue crews are using boats equipped with side-scan sonar, and helicopters, to scour the Duplin River and surrounding waters.
Cultural Day is an annual fall event spotlighting the island’s tiny community of Hogg Hummock, which is home to a few dozen black residents.
The community of dirt roads and modest homes was founded by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.
Small communities descended from enslaved island populations in the South — known as Gullah, or Geechee, in Georgia — are scattered along the coast from North Carolina to Florida.
Scholars said their separation from the mainland caused residents to retain much of their African heritage, from their unique dialect to skills and crafts such as cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.
