WEBVTT 00:00:00.283 --> 00:00:02.848 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% November twentieth, nineteen eighty. 00:00:02.948 --> 00:00:04.173 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Louisiana. 00:00:04.248 --> 00:00:07.023 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% A drilling rig disappears into a lake. 00:00:07.123 --> 00:00:08.348 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Barges follow. 00:00:08.558 --> 00:00:09.533 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Trees. 00:00:09.608 --> 00:00:11.458 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Whole pieces of shoreline. 00:00:11.708 --> 00:00:15.521 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% But the most terrifying part of this story is happening underground. 00:00:16.206 --> 00:00:20.081 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Around fifty people are inside the salt mine beneath that lake. 00:00:20.156 --> 00:00:24.981 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% An electrician spots muddy water carrying fuel drums through the workings. 00:00:25.031 --> 00:00:27.231 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% He flashes the lights three times. 00:00:27.281 --> 00:00:28.691 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The evacuation signal. 00:00:29.323 --> 00:00:31.973 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Now the landing they normally use is flooding. 00:00:32.023 --> 00:00:33.773 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% They need a higher way out. 00:00:33.848 --> 00:00:36.823 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% And one man is driving through remote workings, 00:00:36.823 --> 00:00:39.798 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% looking for workers who haven't seen the warning. 00:00:39.873 --> 00:00:43.714 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% This is Lake Peigneur: The Lake That Swallowed a Drilling Rig. 00:00:44.292 --> 00:00:48.659 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% At one point, the crater was growing away from us, and 00:00:48.659 --> 00:00:52.232 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% then it changed direction and started growing toward us. 00:00:53.846 --> 00:00:58.471 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Jefferson Island rises above the flat country of southern Louisiana. 00:00:58.696 --> 00:01:00.696 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Under it is a salt dome. 00:01:00.796 --> 00:01:03.471 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Diamond Crystal mines the salt. 00:01:03.571 --> 00:01:09.961 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Out on Lake Peigneur, Wilson Brothers is drilling an exploratory oil well for Texaco. 00:01:10.061 --> 00:01:11.361 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Two businesses. 00:01:11.436 --> 00:01:12.986 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Two sets of workings. 00:01:13.086 --> 00:01:14.386 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% One piece of ground. 00:01:14.990 --> 00:01:19.415 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Salt can bend the surrounding rock and create traps for oil and gas. 00:01:19.465 --> 00:01:21.015 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% That attracts drillers. 00:01:21.065 --> 00:01:23.430 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The salt itself attracts miners. 00:01:24.165 --> 00:01:27.308 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% At fifteen hundred feet, the miners worked in 00:01:27.308 --> 00:01:29.665 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% rooms with ceilings seventy-five feet high. 00:01:29.740 --> 00:01:31.943 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% To get out, they had to reach the shaft. 00:01:32.635 --> 00:01:34.660 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Above them, a shallow lake. 00:01:34.735 --> 00:01:38.210 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Below them, room after room cut into salt. 00:01:38.285 --> 00:01:41.376 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The separation between those two worlds is everything. 00:01:42.384 --> 00:01:44.684 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The drilling crew runs into trouble. 00:01:44.734 --> 00:01:46.234 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The pipe hangs up. 00:01:46.284 --> 00:01:48.384 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The platform begins to list. 00:01:48.459 --> 00:01:50.409 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The workers leave for shore. 00:01:50.484 --> 00:01:52.334 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Then the rig goes under. 00:01:52.409 --> 00:01:56.394 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Equipment built to work above the water is now vanishing beneath it. 00:01:56.910 --> 00:01:59.691 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Earlier that morning, underground, master 00:01:59.691 --> 00:02:03.585 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% electrician Junius Gaddison hears fuel drums banging. 00:02:03.685 --> 00:02:07.835 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Muddy water is carrying them toward him on the thirteen-hundred-foot level. 00:02:07.910 --> 00:02:12.748 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% He warns the others and flashes the power three times: the evacuation signal. 00:02:13.768 --> 00:02:16.793 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Earl Dundas heads down toward the working level. 00:02:16.893 --> 00:02:20.393 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Wilfred Johnson finds the flooding too dangerous 00:02:20.393 --> 00:02:22.893 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% at the thirteen-hundred-foot shaft station. 00:02:22.968 --> 00:02:24.743 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The normal phone fails. 00:02:24.818 --> 00:02:27.682 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% He uses the refuge chamber's emergency phone and 00:02:27.682 --> 00:02:30.904 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% calls for the cage at the thousand-foot level instead. 00:02:31.612 --> 00:02:33.587 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% That changes the escape. 00:02:33.662 --> 00:02:37.237 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Getting to the familiar pickup point is no longer enough. 00:02:37.312 --> 00:02:39.262 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The group has to go higher. 00:02:39.337 --> 00:02:42.277 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Every metre gained on the way to the shaft now 00:02:42.277 --> 00:02:45.217 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% has a purpose: keep the people ahead of the water. 00:02:45.835 --> 00:02:49.035 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Randy La Salle takes a truck into remote areas. 00:02:49.085 --> 00:02:53.035 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% He collects four workers who were beyond the lights and missed the signal. 00:02:53.135 --> 00:02:56.610 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% A headcount confirms the lower-level group is together. 00:02:56.685 --> 00:02:59.360 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% They proceed to the thousand-foot station. 00:02:59.435 --> 00:03:03.785 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The report records the evacuation lifts between eight-forty and nine. 00:03:03.910 --> 00:03:05.143 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Nobody is injured. 00:03:05.824 --> 00:03:06.924 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The people come up. 00:03:06.984 --> 00:03:08.129 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The mine does not. 00:03:10.039 --> 00:03:14.864 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% On the lake, fisherman Leonce Viator is out with his nephew, Timmy Dore. 00:03:14.964 --> 00:03:17.216 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Viator later described what he saw. 00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:22.340 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% When we got further down on the lake, 00:03:22.340 --> 00:03:26.020 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% I spotted something, an eye in the ground. 00:03:26.020 --> 00:03:28.950 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% To me, it measured a hundred feet in diameter. 00:03:29.171 --> 00:03:31.446 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The outboard starts churning mud. 00:03:31.521 --> 00:03:35.446 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% With the water dropping, they push toward whatever water remains. 00:03:35.521 --> 00:03:38.296 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% They tie the boat to a tree and get ashore. 00:03:38.396 --> 00:03:40.921 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% State troopers help them get clear. 00:03:41.021 --> 00:03:44.671 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Viator recalls his boat being pulled into the whirlpool. 00:03:44.746 --> 00:03:46.029 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The tree goes too. 00:03:46.631 --> 00:03:50.419 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Geologist Whitney Autin later documented the loss of 00:03:50.419 --> 00:03:54.681 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% sixty-eight point two acres along the southeastern lake margin. 00:03:54.731 --> 00:03:59.006 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The failures included landslides that worked backward into the shore. 00:03:59.081 --> 00:04:02.206 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% So the danger did not stay neatly inside the lake. 00:04:02.256 --> 00:04:04.354 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The edge itself kept failing. 00:04:05.450 --> 00:04:08.029 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Mike Richard watches from a house overlooking 00:04:08.029 --> 00:04:10.975 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% the lake and films with a Super-Eight camera. 00:04:11.075 --> 00:04:15.075 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Years later, he describes the shoreline peeling away. 00:04:15.370 --> 00:04:19.520 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The house he is filming from will itself collapse into the water. 00:04:19.595 --> 00:04:24.456 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% His footage preserves something almost impossible to explain without seeing it. 00:04:24.964 --> 00:04:29.514 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The Delcambre Canal connects the lake toward Vermilion Bay and the Gulf. 00:04:29.589 --> 00:04:33.414 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% As the lake drains, the direction of flow reverses. 00:04:33.489 --> 00:04:36.114 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Water pours inland toward the collapse. 00:04:36.189 --> 00:04:39.022 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% A temporary waterfall forms at the lake, reported 00:04:39.022 --> 00:04:41.855 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% at roughly a hundred and fifty feet high. 00:04:42.489 --> 00:04:44.339 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Water can dissolve salt. 00:04:44.389 --> 00:04:49.414 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Engineers deliberately use that property to create underground storage caverns. 00:04:49.464 --> 00:04:55.064 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% But a controlled operation manages where the water goes and how the opening grows. 00:04:55.139 --> 00:04:57.814 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Here, the flooding is uncontrolled. 00:04:57.864 --> 00:05:00.913 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The geometry is changing as the water moves. 00:05:01.506 --> 00:05:04.656 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The water also displaces air underground. 00:05:04.731 --> 00:05:08.231 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Air and water blow from mine openings on land. 00:05:08.281 --> 00:05:13.681 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% What is happening below the lake is forcing its way back to the surface somewhere else. 00:05:13.731 --> 00:05:16.605 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The failure has more than one visible outlet. 00:05:17.364 --> 00:05:19.513 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% And the barges keep disappearing. 00:05:21.244 --> 00:05:26.675 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% As the lake refilled, nine of the eleven sunken barges came back to the surface. 00:05:27.244 --> 00:05:29.769 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% For the workers, the escape is over. 00:05:29.844 --> 00:05:33.619 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% For the people living nearby, the uncertainty continues. 00:05:33.719 --> 00:05:36.044 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Fifteen families have been evacuated. 00:05:36.119 --> 00:05:39.669 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% A week later, federal officials tell them the ground is 00:05:39.669 --> 00:05:42.510 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% stabilizing, and they are allowed home for Thanksgiving. 00:05:43.345 --> 00:05:46.132 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% And now everybody wants the answer to the question 00:05:46.132 --> 00:05:48.920 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% that has been there since the rig went under. 00:05:48.995 --> 00:05:50.379 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% How did this happen? 00:05:51.194 --> 00:05:55.769 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% The famous explanation is that drilling opened the mine to the lake. 00:05:55.819 --> 00:05:59.595 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% But the federal investigation could not determine the exact 00:05:59.595 --> 00:06:03.370 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% cause, because the flooded workings could not be inspected. 00:06:03.964 --> 00:06:05.939 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% The fight reaches the courts. 00:06:06.014 --> 00:06:09.903 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% In nineteen eighty-three, Diamond Crystal accepts thirty-two million 00:06:09.903 --> 00:06:14.764 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% dollars from Texaco and Wilson Brothers in an out-of-court settlement. 00:06:14.814 --> 00:06:17.445 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% The gardens' interests receive another twelve 00:06:17.445 --> 00:06:20.514 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% point eight million from the companies involved. 00:06:20.589 --> 00:06:25.890 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Those are settlements, not a conclusive reconstruction of the underground failure. 00:06:26.567 --> 00:06:29.017 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The spectacle happened in hours. 00:06:29.067 --> 00:06:32.133 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The argument about responsibility lasts years. 00:06:32.798 --> 00:06:35.014 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Human lives lost: zero. 00:06:36.644 --> 00:06:39.994 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Diamond Crystal had practiced evacuations. 00:06:40.069 --> 00:06:43.079 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Its company history describes an orderly withdrawal 00:06:43.079 --> 00:06:46.519 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% and supervisors coming up on the final trip. 00:06:46.594 --> 00:06:51.092 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% Whatever else failed that morning, people knew they had jobs to do for one another. 00:06:51.744 --> 00:06:55.209 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% They had reviewed the evacuation plan just three days earlier. 00:06:55.974 --> 00:07:00.299 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% It is tempting to call an escape like that a miracle and leave it there. 00:07:00.559 --> 00:07:03.284 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% But that skips the people who made it possible. 00:07:03.359 --> 00:07:04.459 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The warning. 00:07:04.534 --> 00:07:05.584 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The search. 00:07:05.659 --> 00:07:07.109 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The changed route. 00:07:07.184 --> 00:07:08.384 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% The headcount. 00:07:08.669 --> 00:07:13.643 line:77% position:50% align:center size:88% A whole lake can vanish into the ground and still fail to take a single person with it. 00:07:15.080 --> 00:07:17.430 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% Next: Project Gasbuggy. 00:07:17.505 --> 00:07:22.342 line:60% position:50% align:center size:88% The American experiment that used a nuclear device to make natural gas flow.