On November 21, 1980, a crew of Louisiana oil drillers had the absolute worst day at work. They had just arrived to relieve the night shift when their rig, which sat in the water about a hundred yards from shore in Lake Peigneur, began to tilt ominously. The night workers had jammed their 14 inch drill bit into something over a thousand feet down and were having trouble freeing it when the shift changed. With the platform moving dangerously, both crews agreed to abandon the rig and seek further instruction from headquarters, a decision that likely saved their lives. Had they known exactly what they’d just done, they wouldn’t have been so quick to report it.
Due to a gross miscalculation in the drilling site, they had drilled closer to the shore than they were supposed to. The drill had become snagged up in a mine shaft connected to a vast network of salt mines, which the drillers had been aware of, but thought they were well away from. As soon as they got to shore, the rig disappeared underwater, sucked down by the developing whirlpool. By opening a 14 inch hole in the bottom of the lake, the drillers had essentially tugged the stopper out of the bathtub, and the entire lake began to drain into the mines.
The power of the water, which sprayed into the mine with a velocity five times as fast as a fire hydrant, quickly made the hole bigger, which in turn created a stronger whirlpool. Barges and boats that had been floating on the surface of the lake were sucked down to the bottom, and then into the rapidly filling mine. As the lake emptied, the canal that usually ran south from Lake Peignur into the Gulf of Mexico switched directions and began to carry salt-water north. As this redirected flow hit the nearly empty lake, it created a waterfall which for a time was the tallest in the state of Louisiana. The mine filled completely, causing jets of air and geysers to spew out of other entrances, but eventually the downward flow ceased and the lake was calm again. It slowly refilled with canal water and Lake Peigneur officially transformed into a salt-water lake.
No one was killed, or even injured throughout the entire episode. The miners, of which there were 55 underground at the beginning of the accident, all escaped unscathed, as did the drillers above. A lone fisherman who had been out on the lake at that early hour also managed to get away before being sucked under, although it was close for him. As the water was sucked away, it took nearly 70 acres of surrounding lands with it, devastating homes and botanical gardens that used to sit near the lake. Ultimately the oil company could not be proven accountable as all of the evidence that could be used in the case against them was submerged in the now unusable salt mine. Ultimately, this episode resides in the realm of interesting history and scientific “what-if’s,” specifically answering the question: What would happen if you punched a hole in the bottom of a lake?