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The gangway collapsed Saturday afternoon on Sapelo Island in Georgia, killing seven people. “There was no time for anyone to get off,” said Icy White, who watched from about 30 feet away at the ferry dock on Sapelo Island. “It took seconds.” White’s family was among hundreds visiting the isolated Georgia barrier island Saturday for a fall festival spotlighting the …

Festival goers who attended a Gullah Geechee festival on Sapelo Island leave the Elm Grove Church, where they were taken to reunite with loved ones on Sapelo Island, Ga., in McIntosh County on Sunday. Georgia authorities said Sunday they are investigating the “catastrophic failure” of a dock gangway that collapsed and killed seven on Sapelo Island, where crowds had gathered …

At least seven dead after ferry dock gangway collapses on Georgia’s Sapelo Island

Authorities said at least seven people were killed Saturday when part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, where crowds had gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee community of descendants of enslaved Black Americans. Brian Kemp said he and his family were “heartbroken by today’s tragedy on Sapelo Island.” “As state and local first …

Sapelo Island

A utility pole stands in the middle of a marsh at sunset on Sapelo Island, Ga., a Gullah-Geechee community, May 16, 2013. Residents of one of the South’s last Gullah-Geechee communities of Black slave descendants submitted signatures Tuesday, hoping to force a referendum on whether to reverse zoning changes that they fear will make them sell their land. Elected commissioners …

CNN — Descendants of enslaved Africans on Georgia’s Sapelo Island – one of the last intact Gullah Geechee communities in the state – are worried their cultural heritage and property could soon be lost after city officials voted to change the island’s zoning laws. Sapelo Island descendant Josiah “Jazz” Watts, 52, told CNN the county’s zoning plan “shocked us all,” …

SAVANNAH, Ga. — An enclave of slave descendants on the Georgia coast have settled a federal lawsuit that claimed a lack of government services was eroding their island community, one of the few remaining Gullah-Geechee settlements on the Southeast U.S. coast. The agreement states residents of the tiny Hogg Hummock community on Sapelo Island will receive improved emergency services and …