'We heard a click': Chaos on Sapelo Island as dock gangway collapsed

SAPELO ISLAND, Georgia — Marsha Armstrong and her fiance were standing on the gangway to the ferry on Sapelo Island when it collapsed.

“We heard a click and then we were down in the water,” said Armstrong.

Armstrong and her fiance were among the survivors sharing harrowing details of Saturday’s chaotic and tragic collapse of the gangway during a celebration of the island’s Gullah Geechee community, who are descendants of Black slaves.

Authorities have confirmed seven deaths and said Sunday morning that another three people were critically injured and still hospitalized. Those killed and injured were preparing to board a ferry back to the mainland on Georgia’s coast.

Authorities responded to the gangway collapse at the Marsh Landing Dock at approximately 4:30 p.m. Saturday, when about 20 people fell into the water. There were about 40 people on the gangway when it had a “catastrophic failure” and buckled in the center, according to officials.

Multiple agencies including the Department of Natural Resources, McIntosh County Fire Department, the McIntosh Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Coast Guard used boats with side-scan sonar and helicopters to search for survivors.

Some of the people who were hospitalized Saturday had been released by Sunday morning. Authorities do not believe there are any people unaccounted for, said Walter Rabon, commissioner for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.

Gullah Geechee residents are descendants of enslaved West Africans who worked the island’s plantations before emancipation and the Civil War. Today, fewer than 40 live full time on Sapelo Island, in a neighborhood known as Hog Hammock.

None of those killed or injured were residents of Sapelo Island, authorities said Sunday.

Armstrong, 60, is part of the Gullah Geechee Ring Shouters, which had performed twice during the cultural festival on the island Saturday after taking a ferry from the mainland.

As visitors prepared to return to Meridian on Georgia’s mainland by ferry on Saturday afternoon, the gangway connecting Sapelo Island’s dock to the ferry collapsed, throwing dozens of people into the water.

“Everybody was fighting the water. I sprained every muscle in my body trying to fight that water to stay afloat and God sent an angel,” Armstrong, who works in nearby Darien, recounted Sunday.

Armstrong, who can’t swim, screamed for her fiance, Joe Young.

“I heard her say, ‘Joe!’” said Young, had also fallen in but is a good swimmer and rushed to Armstrong.

Young got to her but Armstrong panicked and was pulling him under.

“I threw her about three feet to land and I heard this white lady say, ‘I got you,’” said Young, who travels with Armstrong and the Ring Shouters.

Young continued fighting the current and turned to float on his back. People were throwing life jackets, but some were floating away, he recounted.

He damaged his knee. Both are still shaken by the harrowing experience.

“It was like we were in a movie,” said Armstrong. “I never thought this would happen to us.”

Back on the shore, she said, “there were so many bodies.”

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources operates the ferry that transports people to and from the island. The ferry is the only connection to the mainland.

“The gangway has been secured on Sapelo Island and the incident is currently under investigation,” the Department of Natural Resources said in a news release.

Two ferries were operating Saturday to accommodate the approximately 700 visitors who attended the heritage celebration. On a typical day, less than 100 people use the ferry and the gangway.

The dock and gangway were replaced in November 2021.

“Anything that’s human-made has some kind of limit. I’m not sure what it is in this case, but I’m told it should have handled the capacity that was on it at the time,” Rabon said Sunday.

One of Georgia’s 14 barrier islands, Sapelo is located near the halfway point of the state’s coastline, about an hour’s drive south of Savannah.

President Joe Biden said in a statement Saturday that the White House was in contact with state and local officials and ready to provide assistance if needed.

“What should have been a joyous celebration of Gullah-Geechee culture and history instead turned into tragedy and devastation,” he said.

Among those on the island Saturday, as the tragedy unfolded, was Griffin Lotson, mayor pro tem of Darien and vice chairman emeritus of the federal government’s National Gullah Geechee Culture Heritage Corridor Commission.

Lotson said he and friends were talking when phones started going off, unusual because service on the island can be pretty spotty. He was minutes from getting on a shuttle that would take him to the ferry dock.

He found out later that five members of his group, the Ring Shouters, had fallen into the water. All survived but most, if not all, were taken to a hospital.

“Many of them are older so they had a lot of stuff going on anyway. Some were traumatized, others had injuries,” he said. He was particularly worried about a man known as Captain Jack, who at 85 is the oldest ring shouter in the group.

“I saw them lined up to leave, then I started talking with guests from Florida and New York, that’s how I was saved,” said a shaken Lotson.

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