The Lake That Swallowed a Drilling Platform

The workers try to free the drill, stuck beneath the lake. Then cracking sounds ring out and the platform begins to tilt.

The crew working for Texaco leave the rig and head for shore. Behind them, the derrick disappears into the water.

Peigneur, near New Iberia, is a shallow lake popular with fishermen. The drilling equipment stood above just a few metres of water. It has now sunk out of sight.

Where it stood, the water is swirling. Barges and boats are being drawn towards the same spot.

Reaching the bank

Leonce Viator has come fishing with his nephew, Timmy Dore. From their boat, they see other vessels heading towards the hole. They try to reach the bank.

Viator will tell UPI that they make it ashore, tie their boat to a tree and run. When they look back, the tree is being swept away too.

The bank is collapsing. The whirlpool is now taking soil, trees and pieces of the surrounding landscape. At Live Oak Gardens, greenhouses and a visitors’ centre give way. Families have to leave their homes as the crater’s edge continues to retreat.

Beneath the lake that morning

That morning, men are also working several hundred metres underground.

A salt mine extends beneath part of Peigneur. Diamond Crystal operates galleries excavated in a huge underground deposit. Dozens of men have gone down to work.

Nearly 400 metres below ground, the chief electrician spots muddy water. It is carrying drums and equipment along with it. He warns his colleagues, and supervisors begin the evacuation.

The miners follow the evacuation procedures. They make their way to the exit, staying in contact with the hoist operator bringing them to the surface. But four men are working in a remote area the warning signals have not reached. Supervisors drive out to fetch them.

Within about fifty minutes, everyone is out.

The water flooding their mine is coming from Peigneur. The lake is pouring into the spaces left by salt extraction.

The water finds another route

An opening now connects the lake basin to the galleries. Water rushes through, dissolving salt as it goes. The opening widens, the ground becomes unstable and the banks give way.

The drilling operation becomes the chief suspect: it may have punctured a gallery, connecting the lake to the mine. Diamond Crystal blames Texaco, which disputes responsibility. The companies disagree over the well’s location and the information exchanged before drilling began.

On the surface, the level drops far enough to expose mud. Flying over the scene late that day, local journalist Susan White can make out barges, a drilling rig and a tugboat in the hollow. Speaking to UPI, she compares them to toys.

Yet water is still entering the basin. It is arriving through a canal that should be carrying it away.

The Delcambre Canal connects Peigneur to Vermilion Bay and, beyond it, the Gulf of Mexico. Water normally flows from the lake towards the bay. As the lake’s level fell, the current reversed: it is bringing water back towards Peigneur, with a waterfall forming where it enters.

The lake is draining into the mine while the bay feeds it through the canal. Once the underground spaces are full, water begins collecting in the basin again. By the following day, its level is rising.

After the water returns

The evacuated families will wait several more days before they can go home. Officials need to establish that the ground is stabilising. Permission comes at Thanksgiving, a week after the accident.

Diamond Crystal’s employees are looking for work elsewhere. The company contacts employment services and local employers. The mine the men entered on the morning of 20 November is lost.

No deaths or injuries have been reported. The drilling crew left their rig, the miners evacuated the galleries, and the fishermen reached shore in time.

The lake even gives back some of what it swallowed: nine of the eleven barges rise to the surface.