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The whale was spotted Saturday and remained on Coligny beach throughout the day Sunday

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) -For a lot of beach goers this weekend, they found themselves in shock after a sperm whale beached itself on Hilton Head Island.

“I’ve always wanted to see a whale but not like this. This is sad,” said Ann Marie Atkinson, a beach goer watching the whale Sunday.

“It’s a legit whale; you don’t see this every day,” said Roland Mims, also watching the whale.

Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also known as NOAA, led efforts to keep the whale comfortable.

Clay George, a marine animal biologist with NOAA, says sperms whales are part of an endangered species. He says this one is smaller than normal.

“It’s stranded, it’s very skinny and it’s a long way from where it should be, from its normal habitat. So unfortunately there’s no way we can release the animal,” George said.

He told WTOC it’s likely been unwell for weeks.

With only about 4,000 of it’s kind left on the U.S. east coast, this one is a rare sight, especially in South Carolina.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s been eating well, it’s possible it could have a disease, it’s possible it could be injured. We don’t know what the cause is but what we do know from past experiences is that we can’t just push them back to sea or they’ll just wash up again down the beach somewhere else,” George said.

As far as next steps he says veterinarians from Georgia and the University of Florida will come with gear not readily available on Hilton Head.

The whale will be euthanized and an exam will follow.

“These animals can ingest plastic, they can get hit by vessels, they can become entangled in fishing gear. We don’t know that. We can’t tell that or know if it was natural causes unless we can do an exam on the animal,” George said.

The community here, full of compassion to what they call a product of mother nature.

“To see one like this is very interesting but it’s also very sad at the same time,” said Beth Wasdin, who watched the whale Sunday.

“It made me so sad and I’m sorry they can’t do anything for her,” said Marjan Fishman.

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Chef Mashama Bailey, co-founder of The Grey restaurant, talks quietly in a corner of the commercial kitchen with Emily Mincey-Thorpe, who has cooked for Senior Citizens Inc.’s Meals on Wheels program for more than 20 years. They crush cardamom pods in their palms, smell the heady aroma, then sniff the citrusy punch of deep-red ground sumac—the mise en place of ingredients measured into bowls and artfully arranged on a baking sheet.

On today’s menu: Chicken Roti, a riff on The Grey’s popular Lamb Roti, a spicy (but not spicy hot) dish anchored by a whole grain flatbread (the roti) that is common in Indian and Caribbean cuisines. Instead of preparing the dish for upscale diners, Bailey is showing the Meals on Wheels cooks how to mix the spices and coat the chicken to marinate overnight for the next day’s deliveries. Not often do Meals on Wheels clients receive lunches crafted by James Beard Award-winning chefs, but Bailey is in Senior Citizen Inc.’s (SCI) eastside kitchen to honor the elders as part of the year-long sixty-fifth anniversary celebration of Meals on Wheels in Savannah.

“I think you always have to give back to those who have raised you, those who poured into us,” says Bailey. “We are required to do that. I think it’s a part of being a good human being.”

Bailey says she wants the light that often shines on her to shine on this team, headed by Director of Nutrition Adrianne Piacentini, who were all in the kitchen—as they are every day—by 5 a.m. to prepare 1,800 nutritious meals to be delivered by volunteers to often shut-in older adults across the seven-county service region.

“They’re the real heroes in this story,” said Bailey, “and I’m just piggybacking on all the good work they’ve been doing.”

Honoring the elders

SCI has been doing that good work for 65 years. In 1960, the three founders of SCI began packing a week’s worth of lunches and delivering them to older folks in the community who they knew were struggling to feed themselves, explains Patti Lyons, who has served as director of SCI for 25 years.

The meals are made with the dietary needs of older adults in mind—think, low sodium and low sugar—but big on flavor. Even through the long Covid pandemic shutdown, with extra protocols in place, SCI’s Meals on Wheels program continued to deliver.

“We never missed a day,” says Lyons with evident pride.

SCI joined the Meals on Wheels America network after it was formed in 1974 following the first national meeting of senior nutrition programs in Washington, D.C.

Meals on Wheels’ mission, however, surpasses nutrition. Trained volunteers who pack and deliver meals also help foster community with people whose world’s have grown smaller because of age, illness and ability. By virtue of stopping by seniors’ homes, the volunteers do wellness check-ins and connect their friends and neighbors with needed resources, including medical assistance, if necessary.

To mark this milestone year, SCI’s advisory board suggested inviting area chefs to share some of their signature recipes and techniques. Jennifer Strickland, co-owner of River Street Restaurant Group and advisory board member, said to count her chefs in, and in March, Jason Cummings, Wexford’s executive chef, demonstrated how to make the Irish pub’s corned beef and cabbage.

Says Lyons, “The minute the corned beef hit the road, we got calls.”

Bailey did not hesitate to accept the invitation. Before becoming a chef, Bailey followed in her parents’ footsteps and served as a social worker in New York City. There, she saw first-hand how, as people age, they lose some of the communities they had surrounding them all their lives.

Honoring the elders is a cornerstone of her culinary practice. “I’m excited to be part of this program, and I do think that it’s really special to offer a variety to people who don’t often get out of the house, who can’t go to restaurants often, or who really don’t have a huge community that they interact with… So, we’re going to kind of expand the palate a little bit.

“The great thing about this dish is it’s really high in flavor, but not high in sugar and practically no salt—It doesn’t complicate their diet.”

Max Barbee of the Collins Quarter at Forsyth will grace the kitchen this summer and Kelly Yambor with Elizabeth on 37^th will devise a holiday dinner.

Lyons has been so pleased with both the enthusiasm of the chefs—Bailey even volunteered to deliver meals—and the reception by their clients that she is considering weaving other area chefs into the mix as an ongoing part of the Meals on Wheels program.

To learn more about SCI’s Meals on Wheels program or to volunteer, go to seniorcitizensinc.org/homedelivered-meals.

Amy Paige Condon is a content coach, editor and reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach her at ACondon@gannett.com.

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Global shipping is slowing a month after President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” escalation of the trade war. Georgia companies, workers and consumers could soon feel that softening.

While the state’s trucking industry isn’t “seeing anything ground shaking yet, I think we’re starting to see some ripples,” Seth Millican, president and CEO of the Georgia Motor Trucking Association, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

“But I think probably in another two to three weeks,” he said, “those ripples are going to start turn into waves.”

Those sentiments are shared by trade-related industry professionals across the state, from retailers and logistics pros to ports officials and dockworkers. Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all imports on April 5 and has since enacted a minimum 145% duty on most Chinese goods. Canada and Mexico also face steep levies, some of which are on pause. Foreign autos face a 25% tariff, though Trump relaxed import taxes on certain auto parts in recent days.

ExploreTrump’s economic handling faces growing backlash in Georgia, AJC poll shows

Those actions are now being felt at the top of the international freight pipeline: The trade war has already caused many maritime shippers to pause or cancel upcoming shipments.

There’s been an “extreme” surge in canceled sailings starting the week of May 5, according to industry data from Sea-Intelligence.

Credit: Stephen B. Morton for The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Economists at private equity firm Apollo Global Management are projecting that could in turn prompt a “halt” in national trucking demand by mid to late May, followed by layoffs hitting the trucking in retail industries in late May to early June and a recession this summer.

Across the country, consumer confidence is at a record low, tourism is slowing and companies have been front-loading inventory purchases before the tariffs took effect, the economists said. Empty shelves could be on the horizon if the trade war lingers.

Millican said he’s hearing from his trucking association members with “hard choices to make: Do we raise prices? Do we reduce level of service? We’ve got some companies asking, ‘Do I just close the doors?’”

ExploreUnsure about the economy? So are these top Georgia CEOs

About three-fourths of Georgia communities are completely dependent on trucking to receive their goods, he said.

Much of the initial fallout will be concentrated on the West Coast. The Georgia Ports Authority just closed a busy April. While volume numbers won’t be available for another week, spokesperson Tom Boyd said Friday the Savannah container terminals continued to average 30-plus vessel visits per week throughout the month.

Boyd said traffic is expected to “moderate” in May but to what extent remains uncertain. Workers within the International Longshoremen’s Association unions who work the Savannah docks said they expect to see a cut in labor hours beginning in the next two weeks as ship visits drop. The workers requested anonymity because they were not authorized to comment for the record.

Yet Savannah is somewhat insulated relative to other U.S. ports. The ports authority and its primary users have made diversifying their cargo sources a priority in recent years. China currently represents 33% of the port’s business, down from 49% in 2018, while overall volume through Georgia’s ports increased nearly 29% during that span.

ExploreTracking Trump’s tariffs: Here’s what to know

Credit: Courtesy of Georgia Ports Authority

The ports authority hosted its annual customer appreciation event, the Georgia International Trade Conference, at Sea Island last week. The tone among the attendees was not one of panic, according to the ports spokesperson, as shippers have been “scenario planning” for many months now.

Today is their focus because of future uncertainty, Boyd said, adding that the current climate has further accelerated a supply chain shift away from China to other Asian countries, such as India.

“This is a pivotal moment for trade sourcing,” Boyd said.

Those farther down the logistics chain foresee a different kind of reckoning. Global shipping and delivery giant UPS CEO Carol Tomé said recently: “The world hasn’t been faced with such enormous potential impacts to trade in more than 100 years.”

ExploreA Georgia shrimp boat owner hopes tariffs will revive local fishermen

The company saw a drop in domestic parcel volume in February and March and suspended its annual financial projections given the question marks — as did Georgia-based Delta Air Lines and children’sapparel retailer Carter’s.

Railroad company Norfolk Southern CEO Mark George said in late April that while his company’s largely domestic volumes have remained stable, “there’s no way to predict where we go.”

Credit: AP

Norfolk Southern Chief Commercial Officer Ed Elkins added that they are seeing traction with customers who “clearly want to save money,” as rail shipping is generally cheaper than trucking.

CSX rail confirmed it saw an increase in shipping container deliveries in the first quarter given customers’ inventory front-loading.

As that supply dwindles, a goods shortage could follow. Yet economist Jeff Humphreys with the University of Georgia’s Selig Center of Economic Growth sees the scenario as a sales opportunity for producers of non-traded goods and services, such as those based in the U.S.

“A scarcity of traded goods will not cause households to increase their savings rate like they did during the pandemic-related shortages,” he said.

In Georgia’s trucking industry, the past few years have already been “tough” coming out of COVID-19 with low rates and an ongoing driver shortage, said Millican of the trucking association.

High insurance costs have been a top issue for Georgia truckers, he said, and there had been some optimism for relief in the wake of so-called “tort reform” at the state Capitol.

Credit: JOHN SPINK / AJC

His members are also happy to see certain Trump administration policies including tax reform and deregulation, he said.

But that optimism is running into the uncertain implications of the tariffs and the high likelihood that imports off-loaded at the Georgia Ports Authority terminals could be held on-site as the trade war plays out. Cargo is not subject to tariffs until it clears customs ahead of being trucked or moved by rail to its next destination, and terminals in Savannah and Brunswick have significant storage space available, a ports authority official confirmed.

ExploreGeorgians scramble as tariffs shake the global economy

“What we know today, could be completely different tomorrow,” Millican said.

Compounding this is the underlying fact that the state Department of Transportation recently predicted Georgia will double its freight volumes in the next 25 years.

Truckers have been planning with that demand growth in mind, he said, “but then they’re looking at all of these (near-term) challenges like, ‘How do we navigate this?’”

Ultimately, the industry is resilient, creative and hardworking, he said.

“If there is a way to continue to provide the service to folks, they’re going to do it.”