Lake Peigneur

In 1980 in sleepy Lake Peigneur, Louisiana, something odd happened. If you had been standing on the shore of the lake, you would have seen the oil rig that quietly dug up oil from the bottom of the shallow lake tilt and then suddenly vanish under the water.

Keep in mind that the lake was only a little deeper than three meters or eleven feet, and the oil rig was considerably taller, yet it vanished completely. Then a whirlpool showed up and became terrifyingly huge in no time at all. Barges, boats, trees, a large part of the island on the lake all vanished into the whirlpool.

This was followed by a massive geyser that was so large the local canal leading to the Gulf of Mexico reversed direction and pushed barges back out to sea.

So what happened? The oil rig had accidentally busted through into the local salt mine, a massive operation that also existed under the lake. This mine was no small operation, it was huge, and salt famously dissolves very well into water. All the supports in the mine were in fact salt which disappeared in no time, triggering a gigantic cave in. 

What is perhaps the most amazing thing about the Lake Peigneur disaster is that no one was hurt. No one died. Testimony to how important safety regulations are and how you really have to follow them.

There are many videos on the Lake Peigneur incident, I'll add one below for more information.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week! 

 

 

Good Bad and Ugly

I want to tell you about the good, the bad and the ugly. No, not the Clint Eastwood western, but a trio of disaster movies I watched with my wife last Friday evening.

The good was San Andreas (2015) starring Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson in the lead. It's all about the San Andreas fault wrecking California. This is the best disaster movie I've ever seen, no contest. It absolutely has it's cheesy moments, no question about it, but it's very well made and the acting is good. It also contains some events I've never seen before, so that was cool. If you hate disaster films, you won't like it, but otherwise I really recommend it.

Now for the bad: San Andreas Quake (2015). If you're wondering about the similarity of the titles here, it's not a coincidence. It's Asylum Films doing their usual “homage” to a more popular movie. A more cynical person than myself would call it a ripoff, but since they almost always are so much worse than the originals, it's actually more of a spoof. Surprisingly this film, bad as it is, had a couple of moments that weren't all horrible, though most of it is really lousy. The saving grace here is that they tried. They really did. The end result may not be good, but the makers put some effort into it unlike:

The ugly, or Fire Twister (2015) starring Casper Van Dien of Starship Troopers fame. This movie is abysmal on every plane and in every way. Somehow it has a higher IMDB score than San Andreas Quake, which is unbelievable since these guys just phoned it in, and lost connection half way through. We have a semi sentient fire tornado that changes size all the time, chases people and apparently teleports at will. We have ex-CIA killers who can't hit anything they try shooting at. The only thing they effectively manage to destroy are a couple of mobile phones. Even if you like ultra cheesy movies, I'd say leave this one alone. It's terrible in every way and I could go on describing the horror, but I won't.

So in conclusion, watch San Andreas, consider giving San Andreas Quake a shot if you are in the mood for some terrible cheese, and burn Fire Twister on sight.

That's all folks, so until next time, have a disaster free week!