Additional Coverage:
- A Louisiana Lake Was About 10 Feet Deep Until a 1980 Drilling Accident Turned It Into a 200-Foot Saltwater Hole (parade.com)
On the morning of November 20, 1980, a routine drilling operation at Louisiana’s Lake Peigneur took a dramatic and unexpected turn. A Texaco drilling crew accidentally punctured the roof of the Diamond Crystal salt mine beneath the lake, triggering a chain reaction that transformed the lake in a matter of hours.
The drilling rig, positioned near Jefferson Island, breached the mine’s roof, causing water from the lake to rush into the mine below. This sudden influx created a powerful whirlpool on the lake’s surface, swallowing the drilling rig and surrounding boats within approximately three hours, according to contemporary reports from The Washington Post.
One eyewitness, fisherman Leonce Viator Jr., recalled the terrifying moment. “I told him, ‘You’d better get out of here.
The end of the world is coming,’” Viator said. “That water was roaring.
I ain’t kidding you a bit.”
The whirlpool’s force was immense, pulling in eleven barges, a tugboat, a loading dock, trees, and about 70 acres of land. The derrick alone, standing 150 feet tall, disappeared into the swirling waters. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s library houses photographic records documenting the event’s scale.
In an unusual development, the Delcambre Canal, which normally drains water from the lake to the Gulf of Mexico, reversed its flow as water rushed back to fill the void left by the draining lake. Remarkably, nine of the eleven barges eventually resurfaced, described by Mother Jones as “popping up like iron corks,” while two remain missing to this day.
Despite the dramatic nature of the disaster, there were no fatalities. The miners underground were evacuated safely, and those on the surface escaped injury, according to reports from Atlas Obscura and The Washington Post.
The mining operation, however, suffered extensive damage. Flooding devastated much of the Diamond Crystal salt mine, prompting the company to file a $260 million lawsuit against Texaco. The legal battle concluded in July 1983 with a settlement awarding Diamond Crystal $32 million-primarily paid by Texaco-and $12.8 million to Live Oak Gardens.
In the aftermath, Lake Peigneur underwent a permanent transformation. The lake’s depth increased to nearly 200 feet, making it the deepest lake in Louisiana. Additionally, the influx of saltwater through the reversed canal changed the lake’s composition from freshwater to brackish, altering the local ecosystem permanently.
This extraordinary event remains one of the most remarkable industrial accidents in U.S. history, illustrating both the power of nature and the unforeseen consequences of human activity.