7 people killed when dock collapses on Georgia island

Seven radical were killed and respective others injured erstwhile a ferry dock gangway collapsed connected a Georgia land Saturday afternoon.

Authorities struggled to explicate the tragedy, which ruined a planned solemnisation of Sapelo Island’s Gullah-Geechee community.

“It is a structural failure. There should beryllium very, precise small attraction to an aluminum gangway similar that but we’ll spot what the probe unfolds,” Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon said.

More than 40 radical were connected the gangway erstwhile it collapsed, officials said. At slightest 20 radical went into the water, suffering assorted injuries.

The gangway had conscionable been installed successful 2021. The anterior level failed to conscionable national disablement standards and Sapelo Island’s tiny assemblage of residents successfully sued Georgia to get a replacement.

“There was nary collision” with a vessel oregon thing else, Georgia DNR spokesperson Tyler Jones said. “The happening conscionable collapsed. We don’t cognize why.”

None of the 7 radical killed were Sapelo Island residents, according to Rabon. One of the dormant was a chaplain with the Department of Natural Resources.

Sapelo Island, astir 40 miles southbound of Savannah, is location to a tiny Gullah-Geechee assemblage successful the municipality of Hogg Hummock. The Gullah-Geechee are nonstop descendants of enslaved radical who were forced to enactment connected plantations on islands connected the Atlantic coast.

Saturday marked Cultural Day connected Sapelo Island, an yearly time to observe the assemblage and its traditions.

“Everyone is household and everyone knows each other,” said Roger Lotson, who represents Sapelo Island connected the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners. “In immoderate tragedy, particularly similar this, they are each one. They’re each united. They each consciousness the aforesaid symptom and the aforesaid hurt.”

With News Wire Services