At least 7 dead in Georgia after ferry dock gangway collapses

By Joseph

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At least 7 dead in Georgia after ferry dock gangway collapses

Authorities say that at least seven people were killed when a part of a ferry dock fell on Sapelo Island, Georgia, on Saturday. A small community of Black slave descendants on the island was having a fall celebration.

A spokesman for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Tyler Jones, said that the water was being searched by the U.S. Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Fire Department, and other groups.

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Several people were taken to hospitals. The office runs the dock and the boats that take people from the island to the mainland.

Jones said that at the dock, a gangway gave way, sending people into the water.

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Jones said, “There have been seven confirmed deaths.” “Several people have been taken to hospitals in the area, and we are still searching the water for people.”

A statement from the Department of Natural Resources says that the search was done with helicopters and boats that had side-scanning sonar. The reason for the fall is being looked into.

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Jones said that one of the dead was a priest for the state agency.

He said that at least 20 people were on the gangway when it broke. The gangway linked a dock outside where people get on and off the boat to a dock on land.

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Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia said that the tragedy on Sapelo Island broke his heart and the hearts of his family.

On the social media site X, Kemp asked everyone in Georgia to pray for the people who died, those who are still in danger, and their families. He also asked that first responders from other states and cities help with the scene.

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You can take a boat from the shore to get to Sapelo Island, which is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Savannah.

People from the island, including family members and visitors, were celebrating Cultural Day, an event that takes place every fall and highlights the island’s small Black community of Hogg Hummock.

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The neighborhood with its dirt roads and simple homes was started by slaves who used to work on Thomas Spalding’s cotton plantation after the Civil War.

He said that Hogg Hummock’s slave descendants are very close because they are “bonded by family, bonded by history, and bonded by struggle.” Roger Lotson is the only Black member of the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners. Sapelo Island is in his district.

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Lotson said, “Everyone is family and knows each other.” “All of them are one in a tragedy like this.” They are all working together. They’re all hurting and in pain the same way.

Along the coast from North Carolina to Florida, there are small groups of people who are descended from slaves who lived on islands in the South.

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These people are called Gullah or Geechee in Georgia. Scholars say that because they were cut off from the rest of Africa, the people there kept a lot of their African history, including their own language and skills like weaving baskets and fishing with cast nets.

Hogg Hummock, which is also called Hog Hammock, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. This is the official list of the most important historic places in the United States.

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But the number of people living in the town has been going down for decades, and some families have sold their land and built vacation homes on it.

Tax hikes and changes to zoning made by the local government in McIntosh County have been met with protests and lawsuits from people who live and own land in Hogg Hummock.

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Since September 2023, when the county commissioners passed changes to the neighborhood’s zoning that made homes twice as big, they have been fighting for a year to undo those changes.

People in the area are worried that building bigger homes will cause taxes to go up, which could force them to sell land that has been in their families for generations.

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