Posted on 12/29/2006 3:10:54 PM PST by Ptarmigan
Lake Peigneur is in the heart of the Louisiana Bayou near New Iberia, which is a two hour drive from New Orleans. It was a freshwater lake that was up to 11 feet deep. However, that would all change on November 21, 1982. Diamond Crystal Salt Company operated a salt mine under the lake, while Texaco had a oil rig drilling down for oil. Most likely, it was a miscalculation that led up to this drastic change of Lake Peigneur. The drill hit the Diamond Crystal Salt Company's salt dome. The water starts to drain into the hole. The salt absorbed the water from the lake. However, the salt dome was very large and the fiasco starts to happen, in which a massive whirpool forms sucking everything in from 11 barges, oil platforms, trees, houses, and land. Even Delcambre canal was flowing backwards into the lake. It sucked water from the Gulf of Mexico and created a waterfall that was 150 feet high, the highest in Louisiana. This maelstrom continues for five days. In the end, Lake Peigneur became a saltwater lake that is now 1,300 feet deep. Everyone from the salt miners and oil workers escaped unharmed. No human life was lost in this maelstrom. Nine of the eleven barges popped out of the whirlpool onto the surface. All evidence of the disaster is under Lake Peigneur and in the flooded out salt dome. As a result, no one got blamed for this crazy misfortune.
And away goes the lake down the drain!
Lake Peigneur: The Swirling Vortex of Doom
Lake Peigneur occasionally comes up when we discuss man made disasters here at FR.
Filed under "learn something new everyday!"
Was Ray Nagin working for Texaco at the time?
LOL! Don't want to know that.
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