Both men were experienced boaters so she wasn't worried until her husband never called. It was a November afternoon in 2021 when Eric Josh Williams and his boss, Joe Newby, took out a boat in the Pearl River. The men never made it home. There have been several boating accidents blamed on low head dams and sills along the Pearl River. For years, there have been efforts all the way at the state level to figure out what to do to make them safer.