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‘Catastrophic failure’ of gangway led to 7 deaths on Sapelo
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A “catastrophic” structural failure caused the collapse of an 80-foot gangway at the Sapelo Island ferry dock that sent dozens of people tumbling into swirling tidal waters, leaving seven dead and three in critical condition, a state official said Sunday.
Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon told reporters that the gangway was installed in November 2021. He said it received “almost daily inspections, but I can’t say that we get up under it and inspect it daily.” He didn’t explain the apparent contradiction.
Rabon also deflected some questions about the maintenance and inspection record for the gangway and if any maintenance occurred after Hurricanes Helene and Milton. A local resident previously voiced his concerns about the gangway’s stability.
“The initial findings of our investigation at this point show catastrophic failure of the gangway, causing it to collapse,” Rabon said at the news conference at the Sapelo Island Visitors Center on the mainland.
“What I can say is that it is a structural failure,” he said. “There should be very, very little maintenance to an aluminum gangway like that, but we’ll see what the investigation unfolds.”
“I can assure you that the Department of Natural Resources’ Critical Incident Reconstruction Team will be working tirelessly in conjunction with the engineers and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to gather and preserve evidence and interview witnesses,” he added.
The commissioner said that about 20 people plunged into the water at about 4:30 p.m. Saturday. But it was unclear, he said, how many were on the gangway when it crumpled.
The dead and injured were among the hundreds of visitors who traveled to Sapelo, which is accessible only by boat, for its annual Cultural Day celebrating the island’s Gullah Geechee heritage.
Among the deceased, four were from Jacksonville, two from Atlanta and one from nearby Darien. None were current residents of Sapelo. They ranged from 73 to 93 years old.
McIntosh County Coroner Melvin Amerson confirmed the identities of the deceased as:
- Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75, Jacksonville, FL
- Cynthia Gibbs, 74, Jacksonville, FL
- Charles Houston, 77, Darien
- William Johnson, Jr., 73, Atlanta
- Carlotta McIntosh, 93, Jacksonville, FL
- Isaiah Thomas, 79, Jacksonville, FL
- Queen Welch, 76, Atlanta
Rabon described Houston as a “dear friend” who served as a chaplain for the DNR, the Georgia State Patrol, and the Georgia Bureau of investigation.
Meeting turns tense
Along with multiple news outlets, about a dozen people with ties to Sapelo attended Sunday’s news conference.
J.R. Grovner, who lives on Sapelo and takes the ferry daily, told Rabon he knew there was a problem with the gangway.
“About four months ago, I reported to one of the DNR employees that that gangway wasn’t safe,” he said. “I told him that the gangway wasn’t safe with just me on there by myself. It was giving.”
The Sapelo Island ferry dock on Saturday afternoon. A ramp collapse left several dead on Saturday, Oct. 19, 2024. Credit: Contributed
Grovner complained to one of the ferry captains at the time and the captain told him Saturday after the accident he had been right, he said. He said he didn’t put his concerns in writing.
And that was just his latest complaint. Grovner said he had previously protested about the safety of a bridge on Sapelo.
“Two days later, the bus went through it,” he said. “When are y’all going to start listening to us descendants on the island about what’s going on? We report a lot of stuff to DNR, but it don’t get reported.”
DNR spokesman Tyler Jones cut off Grovner’s questions by reiterating that the investigation is ongoing.
Ferry tragedy adds to Sapelo’s woes
Sapelo residents whose ancestors were once enslaved on the island have long had a fraught relationship with county and state officials.
“We’ve been fighting on paper for 15 years with the state of Georgia and with McIntosh County,” Sapelo landowner Reginald Hall told Rabon at the news conference. “We’re heading to the (state) supreme court right now because the referendum was denied by the judge, as they’re attempting to tax us off of these lands.”
Hall was referring to one of two lawsuits in which Sapelo residents are embroiled, both related to zoning passed in Sept. 2023 for Sapelo’s historic Hogg Hummock neighborhood. The new zoning allows larger, taller homes. Gullah Geechee descendants say the zoning ultimately will tax them off their ancestral land.
“The people on the island have just gone through so much,” said Beverly Banks, whose husband Richard Banks grew up on Sapelo and nearby Brunswick. The couple owns property on Sapelo but was not on the island Saturday. They attended the press conference before heading to the island Sunday to comfort residents.
“It always seems like one battle after another battle, and then the trauma and the hurt and the mental strain, because I am mentally drained from all that has gone on, and then that to happen yesterday, that just added to them,” Beverly Banks said.
Another ongoing battle involves an island-based community center that the county owns and now rents out for use as a bar and grill. Community members wanted a more civic-minded purpose but county officials counter that the bar and grill operator was the only one who responded to their request for proposals.
Jazz Watts, a Sapelo descendant and community activist who is a board member for festival organizer Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society (SICARS), wondered what a promised medical space in the community center could have achieved Saturday.
“We’ll never know if that would have made a difference, but it sure couldn’t have hurt,” he said.
Festival organizer rushed to scene
Cheryl Grant, also a board member for SICARS, was just packing up her drinks station at the festival Saturday when a frantic alert went out about an accident at the ferry launch. She raced in a golf cart to the dock, arriving to find five bodies already pulled from the water and volunteers trying to administer CPR. Grant, who lives in Atlanta, is an ultrasound technician and a trained lifeguard eager to help. She checked one body for a pulse and found none. She asked another volunteer if she could assist. He stepped aside and Grant took over doing CPR. But it was too late. “You just feel helpless as a healthcare worker, she said, dropping her voice to a whisper and stifling a sob. She did what she was supposed to do, she said. “It just didn’t work this day.”
Beverly Banks would have liked to see onlookers taken to a community center to prevent trauma, especially in children who witnessed the gangway collapse and the bodies pulled from the water.
“There should have been a place where people could rally, because it takes time for help to get to the island, and for the people to have to stay there and watch all of that, I could just imagine what went through their minds,” she said.
As news of the tragedy spread throughout the nation, condolences flowed in from state and federal leaders. Watts is looking for those leaders to hear the Gullah Geechee community directly.
“I was reading where they said that President Biden and Vice President Harris and everyone was going to work with the local officials,” he said. “But my hope is that they come and they talk to us. That they reach out to the families of those people that have been injured, that have lost their lives. But when they say, ‘Okay, what can we do for the Sapelo community? What can we do for the Hogg Hummock community? What do they need?’ We need an audience with you. Not with those officials who are not doing the right thing.”
This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with The Current.
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