Sapelo Island dock collapse: Families calling for federal investigation into disaster

SAPELO ISLAND, Ga. - Regina Brinson heard a crack before the metal walkway gave way beneath her feet, plunging her into the water beneath the state-operated ferry dock on Georgia’s Sapelo Island. As strong currents swept her and others who fell away from shore, she called to her 79-year-old uncle: "Grab my hand!"

Isaiah Thomas tried grasping his niece’s hand. But he also clutched her shirt, dragging her head below the water’s surface. Three days after the weekend tragedy, Brinson sobbed loudly Tuesday as she recalled her struggle to survive and what happened next.

"I had to take his fingers, one-by-one, and peel them off of my shirt," Brinson said. "And I pulled him back up to the top, and I saw his face. And I was like, `Oh my God, what did I do? What did I do?’ And he floated by me."

Thomas was among seven people who died Saturday after the dock gangway collapsed with dozens standing on it, waiting to board an afternoon ferry for a ride back to the mainland. The disaster happened on a day when 700 people visited Sapelo Island for a fall festival celebrating its tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants.

Families of the dead want a federal investigation into the dock collapse

Brinson and grieving relatives of two others who died stood by civil rights attorney Ben Crump at a news conference in Florida on Tuesday as he called on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, which operates the dock, is leading the state's investigation into why the aluminum gangway failed. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is assisting in the investigation.

The dock was built in 2021. Crump said he doesn’t trust the state to investigate itself.

Those killed were all between the ages of 73 and 93, but Crump said their advanced ages made their deaths no less devastating.

"These senior citizens were vibrant people," Crump said. He added: "They did not die of natural causes. They died of negligence."

Tragedy strikes a historic Black community that is shrinking

Still largely unspoiled and untethered to the mainland by roads or bridges, Sapelo Island is home to one of the South’s last remaining communities of residents descended from enslaved people known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia. Scholars say their isolation from the mainland enabled Gullah-Geechee people to retain much of their African heritage.

But only a few dozen residents remain in Hogg Hummock, founded after the Civil War by the enslaved Africans who worked the island’s cotton plantation. Many island descendants have left for jobs on the mainland. Others have sold to outsiders land their families held for generations. A lack of services, including emergency resources, and battles over property tax increases have prompted remaining residents to fight their local government in court for more than a decade.

By contrast, the Cultural Day festival held Saturday was a time for celebrating, as island natives and visitors mingled over gumbo and smoked mullet, and watched demonstrations of basket weaving and fishing net crafting.

Remembering the victims of the Sapelo Island dock collapse

Thomas had traveled to the island with dozens of members of a senior-citizens club based in Jacksonville. Since the 1990s, he had lived with an older sister who served as his caregiver. His family knew him as "Bubba," and he was a dedicated church member who volunteered at its soup kitchen, according to his sister, Katrena Alexander.

"I don’t think you could find anybody any kinder," Alexander said. "He would do anything you asked him to do. He would never say no."

At the island dock Saturday, Thomas and his niece, Brinson, were helping a family friend cross the gangway with her walker. Brinson said she watched in horror as Carlotta McIntosh toppled from the fractured gangway. She didn’t survive.

McIntosh was 93 years old, but she rarely stopped moving. She had taken a cruise in December, and told her granddaughter that the secret to her longevity was reciting the Serenity Prayer daily.

"There was no old in her," said the granddaughter, Ebony Davis. "She was vibrant. She was spunky. She was feisty. She was my world. She died doing exactly what she wanted to do: live life to the fullest."

Jacquelyn Carter, 75, was a third member of the Jacksonville seniors club who died on Sapelo Island. She had planned several upcoming trips, according to her daughter Vanessa Williams. When she was home, Carter would often check on friends who weren’t as agile, making sure they had food and their medication, even helping clean their houses.

"There was nothing wrong with her," Williams said. "She was perfectly healthy and perfectly fine. And she should have come home."

William Johnson Jr., 73, and his wife’s cousin, 76-year-old Queen Welch, were also killed in the collapse. They traveled to the island festival from Atlanta with other family members. Johnson was an Air Force veteran who was retired from the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, his daughter Alaina Johnson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Welch was known as the family matriarch.

The McIntosh County coroner identified the others who perished as 77-year-old Charles L. Houston, a chaplain for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and 74-year-old Cynthia Gibbs of Jacksonville. In a statement, Impact Church of Jacksonville said Gibbs was a longtime member who "was always ready to lend a helping hand, quick with a funny quip, full of energy, and so consistent that we maintained a staff workspace for her in our ministry offices."

Georgia agency says gangway should have held weight of 320 people

Crump and some family members Tuesday questioned whether the gangway may have collapsed under the weight of too many people. Officials have said it held about 40 people when the metal snapped.

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources said engineers calculated that the 80-foot gangway should have been able to support the weight of 320 people.

The dock was rebuilt in 2021 after Georgia officials settled a lawsuit by Hogg Hummock residents who complained the ferries and docks failed to meet federal accessibility standards for people with disabilities.

Officials have confirmed with FOX 5 that the last inspection of the gangway took place in December 2023. No areas of concern were found during the inspection, which officials say examined the top and bottom sides. The gangway is currently being inspected at a secure facility.

The same lawsuit also accused McIntosh County of failing to provide adequate resources for responding to emergencies on the island. When the county settled with residents in 2022, it agreed to build a helicopter pad on Sapelo Island. But residents who scrambled to help save people after the collapse said the landing pad still hasn’t been constructed, and a helicopter used to evacuate people Saturday had to land in an overgrown field pocked with holes dug by wild boars.

Resident Reginald Hall was one of the men who charged into the water and joined a human chain to rescue survivors. Speaking to FOX 5's Alex Whittler, Hall said that the dock's collapse was preventable and speaks to larger issues surrounding safety on the island.

"There’s an issue that has something to do with the compliance of those new docks that have only been in existence for three years," he said.

Ferry worker Ed Grovner said he complained to a ferry captain months ago that the gangway didn’t seem sturdy enough, but nothing happened.

Sapelo Island also has no medical facilities. Resident Jazz Watts said a health care provider was planning to open a clinic in the county-owned building that had long served as the island’s community center. But those plans got scrapped in the past year when county commissioners opted to lease the space for a restaurant.