Anxiety runs high at G-8 summit site

Heightened security, potential for violence prompt residents of Sea Island, Ga., to flee before talks

The Detroit News | June 7 2004

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — Charles Lott, who owns the downtown drugstore here, is “so paranoid” he’s leaving town for the duration. Carolyn Hearn is leaving, too, because of the anticipated hassles getting on and off nearby Sea Island, where she lives.

Rhonda Jimerson is staying, but she’s afraid of “getting caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time.” And Royal Chipp will forgo fishing off the St. Simons Island pier.

The Group of Eight economic summit begins Tuesday on Sea Island, a retreat for the very wealthy just six miles from this port city of 16,000. For three days, President Bush and seven other world leaders will hold high-powered talks on trade and other issues.

But residents of coastal Georgia, particularly Brunswick, Sea Island and St. Simons Island, already are feeling the impact. Many are heading inland, fleeing with an edge-of-panic intensity usually seen with approaching hurricanes. Lots of business owners plan to close. Shipyard workers and others without that option fret over getting snared in the massive security apparatus protecting the summit.

“There is some nervous anticipation, primarily from not knowing what to expect,” says Brunswick Mayor Brad Brown.

What has many worried is the fear of violent protests. In 1999, at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, anti-globalization demonstrators set fires in downtown streets, producing an estimated $3 million in damage and 600 arrests. At the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa, Italy, police fatally shot one demonstrator and arrested 300 others.

Last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft said next week’s summit could be one of several high-profile U.S. events targeted this summer by al-Qaida.

Taking no chances, authorities have amassed an overwhelming security presence in coastal Georgia. More than 10,000 local, state and federal officers will protect the summit and maintain order. Gov. Sonny Perdue declared a state of emergency in six counties and deployed the state National Guard. Beginning Saturday, access to Sea Island will be restricted to residents and summit participants.

Heightened security

Everywhere, residents can see evidence of the heightened security. Small military encampments dot the causeway leading to Sea Island and are visible on nearby Jekyll Island. Helicopters and military jets fly overhead practically non-stop. Stacks of concrete barricades are everywhere, awaiting deployment.

People here talk about Seattle in tones of dread. Many say the authorities have done little to allay their fears.

“They have made us so paranoid about everything,” says Lott, who has owned City Drug Store for 24 years. “I don’t know if I should sit outside with my shotgun.”

Instead, he’s leaving. “It will be much more difficult for me to go back and forth,” Lott says. “Everybody’s leaving.”

Well, not everybody. Some of the people who are staying gathered this week for a final planning meeting with local police and protest organizers. In an often-contentious session, the activists sought assurances from law enforcement officials that police will show restraint during demonstrations.

“We’ve been trying to make the point that there are peaceful, educational alternatives (to violent protests),” says Carol Bass, a protest organizer with the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition.

“We’ve been having to do that within the context of the authorities scaring everybody to death.”

Activists expect smaller-scale protests here and in Savannah, 80 miles away, than at previous G-8 summits. Such protests blame the G-8 nations for global job shifts and economic policies that they say exploit developing nations.

Matt Doering, police chief in Glynn County, which includes Brunswick, says police haven’t given citizens more information about what to expect because they don’t have it themselves. “I can’t predict where these anarchists will go to disrupt neighborhoods,” he says.

Some of the residents’ G-8 apprehension is a simple reflection of the region’s sharp economic dichotomy. Brunswick is largely poor. A downtown revitalization effort has come in fits and starts.

Enclave for the rich

Georgia’s Golden Isles, on the other hand, have long been favored by the nation’s jet-setters. It can be jolting to drive the six miles from Brunswick to Sea Island, which President Bush chose last summer as the site of the summit. The president’s parents, former president George Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, celebrated their honeymoon and their 50th wedding anniversary on the island.

John F. Kennedy Jr. and Caroline Bessette wed in ultra-secrecy on Cumberland Island in 1996. America’s captains of industry kept mansion-sized “cottages” on Jekyll Island.

Sea Island is a 5-mile-long enclave of multimillion-dollar homes and uniformed gardeners. The streets are lined with live oaks dripping Spanish moss and magnolias in bloom. There are about 700 homes, ranging from $2 million to $20 million, and a 210-room hotel.

Many Sea Islanders will wait out the G-8 elsewhere. Carolyn Hearn says she and her husband, Bud, were going out of town for a wedding over the weekend anyway. “We were going to have to come back on Sunday and have to go through all that searching,” she says. “We decided to just stay in Atlanta and come back after the summit.”

Officials don’t expect the G-8 to be a boon for local businesses. The region lives on tourism, and the summit is happening during one of the busiest months. “It’s not going to do a cotton-picking thing for us,” says Anne Aldridge, owner of Anne Aldridge Antiques in Brunswick.

One afternoon this week, Chipp, 55, was fishing from the pier in the village of St. Simons Island, where he throws a line in once or twice a week. When he gets lucky, he pulls out drum fish weighing 50 pounds or more.

He won’t be able to fish next week, he says, because “the world is coming to Brunswick, because you gotta come to Brunswick to get to Sea Island.”