Sapelo Island resident says he warned state that dock was in poor condition before collapse killed 7

Caption

The Sapelo Island dock as seen on Sept. 21, 2024, aboard a ferry departing the island.

Credit: Benjamin Payne / GPB News

A resident of Southeast Georgia's Sapelo Island in McIntosh County said that he warned the Georgia Department of Natural Resources last summer that the agency's ferry dock gangway on the island was in poor condition, months before it collapsed Saturday, killing seven people.

JR Grovner told GPB that he notified a DNR captain three or four months ago that he thought the aluminum gangway's structural integrity was compromised.

“I said, ‘This dock is going to collapse;’ I sure did,” Grovner said. “I was walking on it, and it was bouncing. So, I stood in the middle of it and bounced up and down for the captain. And he said, ‘Ah, it ain't going nowhere.’ Yeah. Look what happened.”

The DNR, which operates the dock and the two ferries serving Sapelo Island, declined to comment on Grovner's allegation, which he also aired Sunday at a news conference held by the agency about the fatal incident.

In an interview with GPB on Saturday night shortly after the gangway collapsed at approximately 4:30 p.m., Grovner said, “The captain told me tonight, right after it happened, he said, ‘JR, you told me.’ He said, ‘You were right. You said it.’”

Caption

JR Grovner stands next to his mother Yvonne Grovner near the Sapelo Island dock on Sept. 21, 2024.

Credit: Benjamin Payne / GPB News

Approximately 20 people fell into the water after the dock's gangway collapsed, according to DNR Commissioner Walter Rabon, due to what he described as a “structural failure.” The incident is being investigated by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

Rabon initially said during the Sunday news conference that the dock, built in November 2023, had undergone “almost daily inspections,” but the agency said in a statement issued later that day that the dock's most recent inspection occurred in December 2023.

The inspection was conducted by a contractor, McIntosh County-based Crescent Equipment Company, according to the DNR. The company's website states that it manufactures residential and commercial aluminum floating docks, gangways and fixed piers.

When asked at the news conference if the gangway had a weight limit, Rabon said, “Look, I'm sure anything that's manmade has some type of limit. I don't know what that is. I'm told that it should have carried the capacity that was there yesterday.”

McIntosh County Coroner Melvin Amerson on Sunday confirmed the identities of the seven people who died in the dock collapse as:

• Jacqueline Crews Carter, 75, of Jacksonville, FL;

• Cynthia Gibbs, 74, of Jacksonville, FL;

• William Johnson, Jr., 73, of Atlanta;

• Isaiah Thomas, 79, of Jacksonville, FL;

• Carlotta McIntosh, 93, of Jacksonville, FL;

• Charles Houston, 77, of Darien, GA;

• Queen Welch, 76, of Atlanta.

Approximately 700 people were visiting Sapelo Island on Saturday for an annual festival celebrating Gullah Geechee culture, according to the DNR. The island is accessible to the public only by boat, as there is no bridge.

Home to about 30 full-time residents, Sapelo Island is among the nation's last intact communities of Gullah Geechee people — descendants of enslaved West Africans who scholars say were able to maintain many of their native customs because they worked on relatively remote island plantations, including on Sapelo Island.

“We as a community of the Gullah Geechee on Sapelo Island are heartbroken,” Sapelo Island resident and descendant Reginald Hall told GPB. “These were guests that came over for the Cultural Day celebration that's been hosted by our community organization for a couple of decades. We're heartbroken that our guests had to suffer this. We send our love and we wrap our arms around the family members of the deceased. We're praying for them. What it means for us is that we, too, have to recover from this tragedy.”

Hall said that the dock collapse is symptomatic of systemic underinvestment into Sapelo Island infrastructure and resources by the state, which owns most of the land on Sapelo Island, and by McIntosh County.

“Had DNR had the proper equipment, had the county had the proper equipment, we honestly believe that we probably could have saved more lives,” Hall said.

A group of Sapelo Island residents sued McIntosh County and Georgia in federal court over what the plaintiffs argued was a lack of basic services. The state settled in 2020 and the county in 2022, resulting in financial damages and a commitment to increase municipal services.

However, Grovner told GPB that a helipad, which had been stipulated as part of the settlements, had not been built, resulting in a rescue helicopter having to land on tall grass. He said that it took the helicopter between 45 minutes and an hour to arrive.

Grovner, Hall and other Sapelo Island descendants have also voiced concerns about recent zoning changes enacted by McIntosh County that they worry will price out longtime residents by opening up the island to outside developers. A referendum to undo the zoning changes had been scheduled for this month before it was canceled by a state judge.