CLARKS HILL LAKE, Ga. – Crews will be at Clarks Hill Lake for a third day of searching for two boaters who have been missing since Sunday afternoon.
Search crews were out on the lake from sunrise to sunset Monday, and plan to do something similar today.
Complicating the search: The Georgia Department of Natural Resources says the lake ranges anywhere from 30 to 100 feet deep.
“Any lake or river or anything like that, any structure that you have to deal with, it’s got current, water depths, and right now with the water temperatures. Everything is a variable with how quick you’re going to be able to recover someone,” said Cpl. Bobby Timmerman from the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
We also now know the names of the men who went missing over the weekend:
Eynn Wilson, 34, and Edward Kirk, 37, both of Augusta.
The family of Kirk, a father of four, says he somehow ended up in the water after going out on a pontoon boat Sunday near the Cherokee Boat Ramp.
They told us Wilson went in to save him, but reports differ on how it all happened.
Crews say their main priority is to find the two men first, and then figure out what happened.
“We’re going to do our best to locate those two subjects,” Timmerman said.
“We really don’t know what happened. It could have been a number of things.”
Kirk’s sister tells us she just wants her brother back.
“There’s varying stories but ultimately, the end result is the same. My brother is missing,” LaKesha Johnson said.
“We are in complete shock. You never think that someone like this would happen, especially my little brother. My family, we’re completely devastated.”
Kirk’s family says they’re trying to stay hopeful.
“I mean, every possibility that there could be,” Johnson said, “I’m holding onto that.”
