By Hank Sanders
At least seven people were killed Saturday when a ferry dock gangway collapsed on a Georgia island where hundreds had gathered to celebrate the heritage of a community of slave descendants, authorities said.
The deaths on Sapelo Island were confirmed by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which manages the island and operates its ferry service. The island is about 70 miles by road south of Savannah, Georgia.
The department said late Saturday that at least 20 people went into the water when the gangway collapsed, and that it was not immediately clear how many people had been injured. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard in Savannah said by phone that he was unable to confirm the injury toll.
Hundreds of people visited Sapelo Island on Saturday to attend an annual festival that celebrates the heritage of the Gullah Geechee people, said Griffin Lotson, the mayor pro-tempore of the nearby city of Darien, Georgia. It was not clear early Sunday if any of those visitors had been victims of the accident.
The Gullah Geechee, who live along the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia and northern Florida, are descendants of enslaved West African people who were brought to the southeastern United States more than two centuries ago. The Sapelo Island festival honors their language, cuisine and art, said Lotson, a seventh-generation Gullah Geechee.
“The day is about all of the culture,” he said by phone late Saturday. “From Africa, to the way that it was on the plantation, to the 21st century with the young folks and what they do.”
The McIntosh County Sheriff’s Office said on Facebook that multiple agencies were responding to the accident. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia described the ferry dock site on social media as an “active scene.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said in a statement that federal support had been offered to local officials to assist the community.
“Even in the face of this heartbreak, we will continue to celebrate and honor the history, culture, and resilience of the Gullah-Geechee community,” Harris said.
The cultural festival is organized by the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society, a nonprofit that helps to preserve the heritage of the Gullah Geechee people. The society did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It said in a post on Facebook that it was “heartbroken” over the accident.
J.R. Grovner, who owns Sapelo Island Tours, a company that uses the dock, was on the scene shortly after the gangway collapsed. As he arrived at the dock, he said, he saw bodies floating in the Duplin River.
“Most of the bodies were already on the edge of the river, and people were pulling them up,” Grovner said by phone Saturday night, adding that several of the victims appeared to be elderly. He said he had helped to check some of their pulses as people at the scene administered CPR.
“I’ve been on Sapelo for 44 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this in my life,” Grovner said.
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