PUTNAM COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2 Action News was the only station that got an exclusive look at what Department of Natural Resources Game Wardens have been doing on Lake Oconee while searching for missing teacher Gary Jones.
They’ve been using sonar technology to find Jones in a lake that spans across five counties.
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DNR Corporal Levi Thompson told Channel 2’s Tyisha Fernandes that game wardens spend a lot of time training to be able to search in cold, windy and rainy conditions.
They’ve been dealing with exactly that for the nearly two-week-long search since Feb. 8 when Jones and his fiancée, Joycelyn Wilson, vanished.
The sonar equipment they use can get down deep in the lake and see things other equipment can’t.
“We see the standing timber, we’re looking at large rocks in those areas too and that’s how we locate a body,” Thompson said.
They drop down a yellow bar they call a “tow fish” into the water. It works like a flashlight and figures out where objects are by the sound waves that bounce off of them.
“Then we have a TV and computer screen and that has a tethered rope basically that allows us to drop it closer to the lake shore and gives us a clear image. We just want to be able to provide closure for that family and that’s why I do this, and that’s why the rest of our sonar team is out here working, dedicated in these cold temperatures and windy conditions,” Thompson said.
DNR Spokesperson Haley Chafin said there’s also a lot going on behind the scenes.
“We’ve conducted land searches, we’ve had our specialized K-9s actually out on land doing foot searches. So, these men and women have literally been on land the water and the air searching,” Chafin said.
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