Seven people lining up for a ferry on Sapelo Island, Ga., died Oct. 19 after a gangway suddenly collapsed at the Marsh Landing Dock, state officials said Sunday.
A “catastrophic failure of the gangway” plunged about 20 people into water off the ferry dock, said Walter Ravon, commissioner of the state Department of Natural Resources, at a Sunday press conference.
The DNR agency operates two ferries to the island about 60 miles south of Savannah, Ga., one of the remote Sea Island barrier beaches along the Georgia coast. The Sapelo Island Cultural Day festival, a celebration of the Gullah Geechee African American culture on the southeast U.S. coast, was winding up when the accident happened.
The ferries usually carry around 100 passengers daily but about 700 people traveled to the island Saturday, said Ravon. There were around 40 state Natural Resources employees on the island for the event, and some of them jumped in the water along with McIntosh County deputies and onlookers to rescue people, said Ravon.
“Citizens who jumped right in and saved a lot of people,” said state Rep. Al Williams. The seven victims were aged in their 70s up to 93 years old; state officials said three other persons were still hospitalized Sunday.
The gangway and other dock construction was completed in 2021 and the gangway was inspected “almost daily” by ferry operators, said Ravon.
In the following hours after the collapse the Georgia DNR and other emergency agencies deployed boats with side-scan sonar and helicopters for search and rescue missions.
The gangway, with one end in the water, was secured on Sapelo Island and the object of investigation by Georgia DNR, the Georgia State Patrol, McIntosh County Sheriff’s Office, McIntosh County Fire Department, and the Coast Guard.
The gangway had its last formal inspection in December 2023 by the Crescent Equipment Company, according to Georgia DNR. The agency said ferry operations would resume Monday.
