Criminal Defense Attorney in Skidaway Island, GA.

Tybee Island, Ga. — U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff is continuing his work to protect Tybee Island from sea level rise and coastal flooding.

Sen. Ossoff today announced a new $380,000 Federal grant to help protect residents and homes from flooding on Tybee Island. The Federal grant funding will be matched with $320,000 in local funds.

The Federal funding, through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF)’s National Coastal Resilience Fund, will help the City design and permit a horizontal levee and living shoreline along 1,200 feet of marsh, replacing a culvert that is impeding water flow and causing erosion across the marsh, benefiting 185 acres of tidal salt marsh.

In 2019, Tybee Island securedThis is an external link a $125,000 Federal grant through the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) for the initial design of these key projects, which was matched at the time with $175,000 in local funds.

Between 2016 and 2021, flooding events on Tybee Island increased by 30 percentThis is an external link, threatening the city and its residents.

“I express my gratitude to local leaders and advocates on Tybee Island for bringing local resources to bear to match Federal dollars and who have been such consistent advocates for Tybee Island, particularly when it comes to protecting Tybee Island from storms and flooding,” Sen. Ossoff said. “These funds will help build and maintain critical coastal infrastructure necessary to protect Tybee Island residents and businesses from storms.”

“The support provided by NFWF is critical to Tybee’s ability to improve our coastal community’s resilience, reducing the risk of rising seas and coastal flooding that we are experiencing, while also preserving the natural environment and wildlife habitat, which we hold so dear,” said Shirley Sessions, Mayor of Tybee Island.”

Sen. Ossoff continues to champion efforts to protect Coastal Georgia communities from the effects of sea-level rise and flooding.

In May, Sen. Ossoff delivered new resources through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to construct a new hurricane and tornado safe room on Tybee Island, providing a safe area for emergency personnel who must remain on the Island during hurricanes and other disaster situations.

Last year, Sen. Ossoff’s bipartisan legislationThis is an external link to protect Tybee Island from storm surge, beach erosion, and coastal flooding was signed into law. This law extended the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ authority to partner with Tybee Island for another 12 years.

Also last year, Sen. Ossoff delivered $5 million for Georgia Tech’s Coastal Equity and Resilience (CEAR) Hub to expand their network of low-cost water level sensors along the entire coast to collect vital and potentially life-saving data on sea-level rise.

A group of concerned residents challenged the Tybee Island voter roll in a letter to the Georgia Secretary of State's Office two months after the November 2021 election. Now, a hearing will be held at the State Election Board's regular meeting at 8:30 a.m. on Dec. 19 in Atlanta after an investigation by the Secretary of State's Office into their concerns.

They alleged that the list of registered voters on the island was too large to be true and they believed that people who appeared to not live on Tybee full-time as their permanent residence were still voting in elections, a right many believe should be reserved for full-time residents only.

An investigation got underway by in March 2022, and while no such accusations have been raised again in the aftermath of the Nov. 7 election this year, the issue will finally have a resolution, at least for now.

More:Tybee Island continues effort to clean voter rolls; 27 names deemed ineligible

More:Tybee residents challenge island's voter rolls. Georgia Secretary of State investigating.

The letter, which was signed by Mack Kitchens, who previously ran for mayor of Tybee, and, John McMasters, a former Chatham County commissioner, noted they had two main areas of concern: irregular voting on Nov. 2, 2021 and an excessively large voter list. They noted that information received through open records request suggested that Clerk of Council Jan Leviner may not have been carefully maintaining the voter list.

Voter registration list maintenance is the process election officals use to maintain accurate and up-to-date voter lists. Removing ineligible voters from that list is a job that city clerks happens at a local and state level, according to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

The Chatham County Board of Registrars conducts a cleaning of the roll before municipal elections. A registered voter can submit challenges to the registrars at their monthly board meetings of other voters' eligibility to cast votes on election day.

Clerks and registrars can remove voters from the rolls for a number of reasons like dying, serving out a felony sentence, or not having had contact with election officials for around nine years.

Chatham County Board of Registrars Chairperson Colin McRae said in a letter to the City of Tybee Island at-large that "Ms. Leviner has shown great persistence and professionalism in her pursuit of ensuring an accurate voter roll for Tybee Island."

As recently as July 2023, the last time the registrars updated their meeting minutes, the city has been working to verify the city's voter roll, with six challenges to Tybee Island residents.

The residents, in the letter from the residents, supplied a list of 120 voters out of the 700 they audited (1,300 voted in that election) were "irregular" or people who did not live on the island but had just voted in the 2021 councilmembers. Brian West, who was just voted mayor, was among the three voted in that year.

In June 2022, after Leviner and Kenneth Williams — who no longer lives on the island — challenged the residency of some islanders, the Chatham County Board of Registrars ruled that a total of 27 registered voters on the island likely do not live there as their primary residence and would have to prove their residency when voting in future elections.

At the meeting, investigators will present findings of their investigation, and whether or not they believe a violation has occurred, however the board has sole discretion over whether or not there was a violation of state election law or State Election Board Rules.

If the board finds there was no violation, the complaint will be dismissed. Punishment for election crimes in Georgia are fines, jail time, or both by discretion of a trial court.

The meeting will be livestreamed on their website.

Destini Ambus is the general assignment reporter for Chatham County municipalities for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach her at dambus@gannett.com

TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. (WSAV) — Organizers have announced on social media that Orange Crush is making a comeback in 2024.

“We’re on top of it and we know what’s coming,” said Tybee Mayor-elect Brian West. “We’re prepared.

He says this year’s bash was more than expected, made worse by a few bad eggs.

“A certain percentage of the group is there to cause problems and it ruins it for everyone,” said West.

In April an estimated 40-50,000 spring-breakers flooded the island for Orange Crush. The tiny island saw massive gridlocked traffic, car accidents and over a handful of arrests made.

“There are other places that are easier access or easier to get in and out of that would probably be better locations for this event than we have to offer,” said West.

Tybee spent $187,000 in security for Orange Crush events. West says that money didn’t come back in revenue.

“The people that own the businesses are like there’s no reason to put my staff through this so they just close,” said West.

He says restaurants had rowdy guests and unpaid checks, and the reputation the island got from these events even affected business later.

“We had a lot of phone calls like “I’m scared to come,” because they were promoting an event that weekend,” said West.

Another Orange Crush event was rumored to happen on Tybee’s busiest weekend of the year, July 4th. West says after word got out, people didn’t want to come fight through crowds or traffic jams.

“That’s not good for Tybee,” said West.

He says they’re already looking ahead to controlling crowds now that they really know what they’re in for.

Orange Crush is supposed to happen the weekend of April 18. West says the city will get together with law enforcement and state leaders to look at ways they can control crowds.

Brian West said that he started getting involved in Tybee Island politics, because he doesn’t want the island to turn into something it’s not.

“That’s a fear for a lot of people that have lived in Savannah and been on this island their whole lives,” West said. “They like it, it’s kind of like a little, quirky thing going on here and it’s a fun place to be. I want to preserve that.”

West was raised in Savannah, and came to Tybee Island like many other people who grew up in Coastal Georgia. He left for college but came back to Savannah, and then made the move to Tybee in 2010.

He said he was always interested in politics, but first became involved in 2019, when he ran for city council and got fifth out of eight people. In 2021, however, he ran again and got the most votes out of everyone, he said.

Here are the qualified candidates for the Tybee Island elections on Nov. 7.

More:Tybee Island election: Newcomer joins incumbents in winning council seats

Carolyn Williams, a friend, said West doesn't do things hastily, and is very reasonable.

"He doesn't make decisions on emotions, he tends to say, I think we should find out all of the information about something and that's what made me back him as a council person in the first place.

West said he thinks he got the opportunity to be a councilmember during that second run, because he spent more time meeting and talking with people about his vision of Tybee. He also thinks the short-term vacation rental debate was a factor, too.

According to West, there are two camps when it comes to the short-term vacation rental divide on the island. Some think there should be no short-term vacation rentals, and others want lots of them. He thinks they are necessary.

“We need tourists here,” West said. “That’s our economy, people come in, spend money, support the businesses. We need tourists, and they need somewhere to stay.”

West said that he hopes that’s something that the city can work on and figure out.

“It’s more appropriate to have vacation homes on the section of the island, across from City Hall on that side of Butler, less appropriate to have them in quiet areas a bit further from the beach,” West said. “But the way our zoning is set up, we can’t section off that area without making new ordinances. I think the rules the council has come up with in the past couple of years are good and workable, but it would be better if we could loosen the restrictions in some areas and maybe add them in others.”

West said he’s also running for mayor, because he wants to be involved in the “interesting” things that are happening in Tybee over the next few years, and wants to ensure that everyone, as a community, likes whats to come.

One of those things is the new bridges that are meant to begin construction in 2025.

“Those bridges are going to have bike lanes, so we’re going to have bike traffic that will be able to be on Wilmington and Whitemarsh Island, and there will be a bike lane all the way down to the beach,” West said. “We have to think about the way our road is designed, we don’t have anywhere for bikers to go when the come across the bridge, and it’s going to make the town feel different. I just want to make sure it’s reasonable and something everybody can live with.”

West also said that the city has plans to improve one of the parks to make it more playable, and to stop any further development if that's possible.

“If we can, have more green spaces, more family areas,” West said. “Maybe we can attract more families down here, I think it’s mostly retirement aged people here.”

More:Tybee Island considers bringing dog days to the winter season

Other than short-term vacation rentals, another issue that all Tybee Island mayoral candidates will be expected to address is large, unsanctioned events such as Orange Crush. This year, the weekend event that takes place in April, garnered an attendance record of 50,000 people to the small island.

“It was out of hand,” West said. “We had to bring in more help from outside to calm it down, and that worked well. I think the city’s got a good handle on it now.”

West said the plan for next April, if he were elected, is calling on help from different law enforcement agencies like they had to do this year.

West said the position of mayor requires governmental knowledge and leadership skills.

“We need leadership, we have a city manager that runs everything, but that manager needs leadership, needs to know what direction to head in,” West said. “We need to organize our goals and talk about which direction to head in. That takes leadership. I can do that.”

Williams also said that she thinks West would be a great leader for Tybee.

"It's a unique city to be mayor of," Williams said. "I think Brian has the skillset to do it with his background. You have to be a really good communicator, and a diplomat, and has all of those qualities that I admire."

For Savannah Morning News

This coverage is made possible through a partnership withWABE and Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

When the tide gets high enough on Skidaway Island near Savannah, water can wash over the bulkhead that’s meant to protect UGA’s Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.

It’s not usually enough water to threaten their buildings, according to institute Director Clark Alexander.

“But it is a reminder that we have protection up to a certain limit,” he said.

This weekend could be one of those times when the tides push the limits for coastal Georgia. It’s not because of a storm, but thanks to unusually high tides.

Because of sea level rise, more and more often, high tides bring in enough water to flood low-lying areas. The tide gauge at Fort Pulaski, the only one on Georgia’s coast, set a record of 13 high tide flood days in 2019 and tied that record in 2022.

Alexander said he’s watched this change over his more than three decades at Skidaway.

“I can remember just a few times when we would have high enough tides with enough onshore winds for us to have water coming over our bulkhead,” he said. “But in the last five years, it's been an annual event. And so we are seeing the effects of rising tides, and rising sea levels as well.”

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Sea-level sensors help to show sea-level rise in real time

To help the coast prepare for the future, a team from Georgia Tech has partnered with a host of coastal organizations to install sea level sensors. The project started five years ago in the Savannah area, but it’s now expanding to map water levels up and down the coast.

Russ Clark, a senior research scientist at Georgia Tech, says it’s important to have solid numbers on coastal flooding and sea level rise. He leads the project.

“It's no longer just anecdotal conversations with people about, hey, my neighborhood floods all the time,” he said. “Now they can show, ‘look, this is where the water gets, you know, eight times a year, this is where the water gets two times a year, this is what happens in a major storm.’”

Government leaders can then use that data to figure out where to raise a road or improve the drainage – and to map out evacuation routes that don’t flood. Eventually, the sea level sensor data could also help improve forecasting, so people can have a better idea of exactly how high the water will get at high tide.

Clark said the sensor data can also help make the concept of higher sea levels more concrete .

“The whole notion of an inch or two of sea level rise is just meaningless and kind of abstract,” he said.

Focusing instead on frequency of floods in certain places is easier to understand, he said. “That's something that we can tangibly explain.”