Post by captblicero on Feb 4, 2013 21:58:51 GMT -6
It's best to just quote Wikipedia here. It's a good summary:
On November 20, 1980, when the disaster took place, the Diamond Crystal Salt Company operated the Jefferson Islandsalt mine under the lake, while a Texaco oil rig drilled down from the surface of the lake searching for petroleum. Due to a miscalculation, the 14-inch (36 cm) drill bit entered the mine, starting a chain of events which turned what was at the time an almost 10-foot (3.0 m) deep freshwater lake into a salt water lake with a deep hole.
It is difficult to determine exactly what occurred, as all of the evidence was destroyed or washed away in the ensuingmaelstrom. One explanation is that a miscalculation by Texaco regarding their location resulted in the drill puncturing the roof of the third level of the mine. This created an opening in the bottom of the lake. The lake then drained into the hole, expanding the size of that hole as the soil and salt were washed into the mine by the rushing water, filling the enormous caverns left by the removal of salt over the years. The resultant whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres (260,000 m2) of the surrounding terrain. So much water drained into those caverns that the flow of the Delcambre Canal that usually empties the lake into Vermilion Bay was reversed, making the canal a temporary inlet. This backflow created, for a few days, the tallest waterfall ever in the state of Louisiana, at 164 feet (50 m), as the lake refilled with salt water from the Delcambre Canal and Vermilion Bay. The water downflowing into the mine caverns displaced air which erupted as compressed air and then later as 400-foot (120 m) geysers up through the mineshafts.[4]
There were no injuries and no human lives lost. All 55 employees in the mine at the time of the accident were able to escape thanks to well-planned and rehearsed evacuation drills, while the staff of the drilling rig fled the platform before it was sucked down into the new depths of the lake, and Leonce Viator, Jr. (a local fisherman) was able to drive his small boat to the shore and get out.[4] Three dogs were reported killed, however. Days after the disaster, once the water pressure equalized, nine of the eleven sunken barges popped out of the whirlpool and refloated on the lake's surface.
So let me emphasize a couple things. They punched a hole in a lake. It drained into a mine. The water reversed direction and created the highest waterfall in the state, 164 feet, as the whirlpool basically destroyed the surrounding area.
Video but it doesn't show the damage in real time.
Here's another fun one: the Lituya Bay megatsunami. A tsunami wave 1720 feet tall. They measured this based on the damage that went up the mountains. The tsunami was so large because it was a narrow bay and a big ice chunk from an earthquake fell in. The punchline? Two fishermen in a tiny boat rode out the wave into the ocean and survived.