Honestly this is the VPN i use. Linus Tech Tips endorses it so you know its a solid VPN it also comes with add blocking and different encryptions that sites arent use to so dont have issues with
John Booth killed Lincoln, and your video says and "an acquaintance of both actorJohn Wilkes Bootth and the ,man who killed president Abraham Lincoln".... That assassin was Mr. Booth though others were involved...
@@PlainlyDifficult it could of had those two fellas trying to cat fish on the lake during it, luckily they managed to get to land before the lake started drying up
@kitkatcrews It's a sound course of action. As another example that's more common, when I see something off while I'm driving, I take action immediately; I don't want to wait to "see what happens." In this way, I avoided a side-swipe from an onramp and maybe a head-on. The near side-swipe was someone gunning it from an onramp, and I would have been in literally the only car that could have been hit in a quarter mile or a half mile. Thankfully I glanced in my side mirror just in time, before slamming the brakes and going down to about 30 MPH. He / she went around 75 MPH in a 55 zone, before leaving the highway 3/4 of a mile later. The near head-on was more recent, and someone was gunning it past 3 or 4 cars in a 55 zone with not enough space to make it. I was going around 50 in the opposing lane, and so I slowed down to maybe 30 - 35, I honked the horn, and I put my 4 ways on since a pickup truck towing something was behind me. My actions may have also alerted the drivers in the other lane who might not have known someone was dangerously passing. Oh, there was another time when someone was looking at road maps while driving and then he ventured way over in my lane, but he was far ahead of me. I was unlikely to have had a head-on even if I didn't slow down from 55 to about 25. Still, honking the horn alerted him that he was about to go off the road, so that helped someone.
This is such a good story. The clash of mining titans, the reversed river, the boats disappearing as if Gob Bluth was involved, the insane physics - and nobody died! Only you, Mr. Difficult, could do this one justice. Thank you!!
Crazy, the river actually reversed, that must of been weird to see. I imagine there would have been some confused fish and animals swept along and killed
I first learned about the Lake Peigneur disaster from the History channel, "Modern Marvels: Engineering Disasters 5", this episode aired in 2003. It was wild seeing the disaster footage, as the lake drained down the bore hole, creating a giant whirlpool, and landslides as the earth itself was sucked down into the mine, this episode remains my primary source for Lake Peigneur.
This is the second week in a row that John has covered two incidents that I am extremely familiar with. This incident, The Lake Peigneur sinkhole, occurred when I was a child. While several hundred miles away from where we lived, I remember the news stories of the incident. Last week's episode, The Queen Isabella Causeway Disaster, I was involved in the rescue and recovery operations as a critical care flight paramedic. I never thought any of these incidents would see coverage like this. Once again, John never ceases to amaze and educate!
@@lisah9561 Unfortunately, no. He seems like a great person. I definitely respect his work. I just think it's awkward calling him Plainly Difficult, lol.
A couple more interesting occurrences due to the disaster: Once the lake had completely drained, the water coming in from the Delcambre canal (flowing backwards, as mentioned) became a waterfall, and to this day is the tallest known waterfall in Louisiana history. After the the lake was partially refilled (days after the disaster started) the pressure holding the barges and other boats down in the hole was gone, and several popped back up to the surface (9 of the 11 barges that had disappeared ultimately resurfaced).
I'm glad you did this. In 1981, a drill rig that was just starting operation in Texas hit a 12 inch pipeline shipping an ethane-propane mix. 4 workers were killed in the following fire. The drilling company failed to check property & other records for any underground utilities there.
As a resident of the fine state of Louisiana, thank you. Look into the somewhat recent "Hard Rock Hotel collapse." Corruption, incompetence and 3 deaths with an 18 story hotel structure under construction In New Orleans on Oct. 12, 2019, You should find some good footage. Keep up the great work.
@@markr.devereux3385 I haven't seen one yet. I would like to see Plainly Difficult to tackle the project. It's a scandal that has been somewhat forgotten.
I live 6 blocks from the site. When it happened the ground shook so much stuff fell off shelves, the whole building moved and the cats hid under the bed. And still it stands, a monument to the rapacious and destructive chase after money.
There’s one final bit to this story that I love. At the time, the owners of Rip Van Winkle Gardens (which was built by Mr. Jefferson around the house on the island) had just finished a new home next to the lake. The land under it and the house got destroyed, but the chimney is still there as the last remaining part of the house. It’s a few feet off the shore in the lake and is visible from the gardens, or was as of the last time I went down there a few years ago. It was how I originally heard of the story and it’s still one of the most insane things I’ve ever heard and seen and is a really surreal sight to see in person!
I’ve heard an interview with I think a grounds keeper at Rip Van Winkle. What he described was truly terrifying. I can’t imagine just going about my business and seeing this going on. I would have been terrified.
I can't imagine being a worker in a mine, seeing an oil drill on the lake above the mine I work in, and just shrugging my shoulders and being like "they know what they're doing." How did none of the miners raise a red flag?
I'd be curious if the mine did a quick safety refresher in the weeks leading up to the start of drilling. It definitely sounds like everyone's head was on a swivel and eyes were open. IOW, I don't think anyone "shrugged". I think management did what they could and when that failed they told everyone to keep their eyes peeled for any sign Texaco had gotten there geography wrong and punched a hole in the mine. The fact everyone got out that fast speaks of good training and a staff that had their eyes open.
@@caneyebus God Bless them, just because the talk a bit funny don't mean they're fools. They knew what could happen and I think the record shows they were prepared.
Something similar happened in Prešov. The salt mine was flooded (natural causes) but not abandoned. People started to take out the salt brine and cook it to get salt. It worked for decades. I have visited the museum there, it is very interesting and certainly worth a visit to see all the technology from the 17th century. Just search for Prešov Salt Plant if you want to find out more.
Through the Appalachian Mountains, there are occasional Salt Water Springs, and the Land-owners are careful to keep them quiet, but will trade with locals regarding the access to cook down the salt water for salt in bulk quantities for things they might have trouble getting themselves... A lot of people have never heard of it before... BUT I've been to a couple, and traded rather inexpensively with the side agreement, that I'd harvest a little additional bulk salt for the owner(s) as well, as long as I was there anyway... haha... ;o)
Unlike most Plainly Difficults, everyone saw their respective problems and reacted appropriately and everyone was saved. Usually it's "Wow! Things are going horribly wrong but I'm sure we'll be OK."
"... Shocked to see the rig completely disappear below the water, something that shouldn't even be possible as the lake, at its deepest point, was only 12 ft." the fact that this reads like a creepy pasta makes it all the more miraculous that, somehow, nobody actually died
I’ve been waiting for this one. My dad grew up in the area and remembers noticing the oil rig that was always there *suddenly wasn’t*, and how bizarre for him it was that national news stations were talking about their tiny town and the surrounding area. Glad to hear about it from you!
Honestly, I think the fact no one was killed is a testament to both the training of the mine workers and the drillers. That's what makes the difference in these situations, and my fellow Louisianans did us proud that day.
There's a coal mine near me in southeast Ohio, called meigs 31, that breeched an adjacent shaft that was flooded. The subsequent reaction was to dump the waste water into leading creek/racoon creek, which turned the ohio river orange from middleport to nearly Cincinnati. Would be epic to see you do a short on that horrendous incident.
This, by far, is one of my favorite stories, I've actually been there to the site. Thank you plainly difficult, you always hit it out of the park and make every Saturday amazing!
I was going to write almost exactly the same thing. I remember this on the news when I was a kid, but I haven't been to the site. Great and crazy story, unbelievable if it weren't for the footage.
There is actually some footage of this with the barges disappearing into the whirlpool. It is somewhere here on UT but I can't remember where, still it can't be too hard to find. What is wild is the hundreds of trees that lined the lake being ripped from the shore in huge groves and then just going missing as the water continues to drain.
I work with a team of well planners for an oil and gas company, and one of the trickier things that we have to pay close attention to are the latitude/longitude and what coordinate system they are in. For example the North American Datum 1927 differs from the 1983 version but both are still equally used, and the decimal points are juuuuuust off enough to cause problems if you're not paying attention. It doesn't matter how much technology has changed and improved over the years with the advent of GPS and GIS systems; the human error factor will always be there. Excellent work, as always!
It is so incredibly cool to see you cover this. As someone who is immensely interested in whirlpools, natural and otherwise, this has always been one of the most interesting disasters to me. You are my favorite mini documentary maker on yt, you always make them lighthearted but in the most respectful way which is insanely difficult. Plus you never have misinformation, you make things super easy to understand, and your drawings are fantastic I love it. Thank you so much for covering this, especially since mine disasters seemed intimidating to cover. We all really appreciate it! Wishing you well always my guy.
Honestly missed opportunity to say plainly difficult instead of insanely difficult but other than that I love the positivity of everyone in the comments section of plainly difficult's channel
As soon as i saw the logo i yelled "Texaco!" I grew up next to the Texaco research facility, in New York, so id recognize that logo anywhere. Fun fact, after that research facility closed up, my brother in law, who was just my friend at the time, lived across the street. I sold him like a dozen blockbusters, which is a quarter stick of dynamite, and he taped 3 of them together, and blew that massive Texaco logo sign, right out of the ground. Thats how we americans celebrate the birth of our country, we blow up a small piece of it. Good times.
I always thought of this incident in terms of a hypothetical phone call from the rig manager to Texaco head offices: "Head office, this is Joe from the Lake Peigneur site. We have a problem here with the drill. It's.. errr... missing... aaannd....
Texaco was drilling in the wrong spot, it came out in the court when they were being sued by everyone effected by the accident. The head engineer responsible for reading the map screwed up. He even got another engineer that was under him fired for trying to point it out to him. I'm old enough to have watched it on the news while it happened when I was a kid. After that came out in court Texaco had to pay out many millions of dollars, because they had been trying to blame the geologic survey company that made the map. Edit: he missed one thing Texaco had too pay the residents in the area as well, but they settled out of Court, and made them sign a nondisclosure agreement. Which was speculated to be as much as was payed to botanical garden, and salt company combined.
you forgot to mention the power of the whirlpool, during this event it literally pulled part ofthe island apart and you saw houses etc drop into a lake that was only 4ft deep
I love the way you tell these tales of disaster and I'm so happy you finally did this one. Thanks a lot for covering one of my favorite "What could go wrong?" stories.
I first read about this in the mid 80's from a National Geographic I picked up in a donated stack of magazines. It amazed the child me and still does. I doubt that only the open areas of the mine took in all that water. The salt dome no doubt dissolved some as the water invaded and made all the chambers larger, thus able to hold more water, repeat to an extent. That it ever stabilized is amazing to consider, given how much water that would take. It's incomprehensible to most people.
Crazy thing, me and some other guy decided to calculate how fast the water was moving in that whirlpool. Calculating from how strong it was flowing into it, it was flowing at 410 mph Into the mine. An absolutely absurd speed
Due to the uniqueness of the incident I call the crater from the whirlpool a whirldera, a hybrid between a caldera and a whirlpool as it involved a whirlpool making part of the salt mine to callapse and excevate massive amounts of mud
For me, the surprising thing isn’t that the lake drained into a mine. It’s that the Gulf backwashed into the lake. God knows HOW much water was actually inside of that labyrinth.
Hey Plainly Difficult. Maybe you could dive into a big fire that happened here in the Netherlands in 2011, it’s the Moerdijk fire. It happened in a indrustrial area and luckily it did not spread further or it could’ve torched a acetone company. Of that would’ve happened it could’ve torched an area of 1km2.
@@ianmacfarlane1241 ha I lived in a village 15km away from that and I still remember the alarm and the bang from the explosion in 2014, luckily the windows survived haha
Glad no one was killed, but hearing 2 bork borks possibly died did make me sad. Maybe there is something wrong with me but I hate hearing of animals esp bork borks (dogs) dying or being hurt.
What a legendary disaster. I know this was a known mine but breaking into previously unknown caves is a lot more common than people might think. Happens fairly often in well drilling.
Thanks for taking this on. Its amazing different creators take and presentation of the same events. I love the manner in which you present events and the depth of information you manage to present in your vids with out making it feel like I'm being thought something by cramming
You should look into the Banner Mine Tragedy. In 1911, a sudden explosion killed several miners and caused over 100 to suffocate. The accident was severe enough that it brought the governor's attention to the horrible conditions of Mines in alabama. My dad also tells me a lot about another mine disaster in Alabama that resulted in a flood that killed many, but I cant find anything on it nor can I remember the name.
I live only 27 minutes away from Jefferson Island, in Lafayette. This story has always fascinated me and it’s been interesting to visit Jefferson Island many many times throughout my childhood as a little fun day out. The salt mine on Avery Island, not that far from Jefferson Island, recently collapsed. You did a decent job at pronouncing Cajun names, but Delcambre wasn’t correct 😂 It’s pronounced “Del-colm”, like you’d say for Malcolm. There’s unfortunately a lot of events like the one Jefferson Island and I hope you cover some more from Louisiana
The mine I work in the Pilbara region of Australia moves 1.8 million tonnes of dirt EVERY DAY. >220k of this goes through the process plant and about 200k tonnes of iron ore is shipped every single day. The scale of the minesite is actually unbelievable
I don't think you have cover this topic before, or if this is interesting enough, but maybe you want to look about "lapindo mud" in Indonesia.. I think similar to this topic, which is begin with some drilling, but instead of draining a lake, it caused or create a mud lake, which is still erupting from the drilling hole until today (started in 2006)..
Louisiana has some crazy disasters. One I remember was a gas well fire back around 2007 or 2008. It was close to I-10, which is a major transportation route among Southern states- you pretty much don't travel at all along the gulf coast or near it without using I-10. We were traveling from south Alabama to southeast Texas and the detour was an added hour or more going west to an already long trip with an infant in the car. That stretch of interstate between Lafayette and Baton Rouge stayed closed for a bit, too. There have also been some fires right on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge through the years. Luckily it's a strong bridge or a lot of people could be really hurt.
is it really a miracle that everyone survived or is it just that they actually prioritized safety? Actually, that's a miracle in and of itself so, yea, I'll agree
i would not be surprised if the mine workers were half-expecting this. i mean, seeing an oil rig in a lake clearly right above your mine must set off some red flags
Your content is so informative and accessible, but what gets me is your humor. You put in the funniest things when I least expect it.Thank you for the videos!
Fantastic video, I live near the lake and used to go fishing there 14years ago. The lake is mostly 3-4 feet deep, except for a couple hundred food center. It's really creepy floating on top of a hole that big in Louisiana. My sonar fishfinder really goes ape shit as we navigate across the hole. Not only that but there is some kind of huge swimming animal that make an enormous splash when it comes to the surface and we can't figure out what it is! Great channel, I really enjoy your work!
Hey, sir. Love the content, I've watched and read hundreds of hours of this disaster. The visuals and the language used were expert. Well done! Hope you have a wonderful week!
I recommend that you do a story about the Chicago river flood sometime in the 1990’s….workers were driving piles into the riverbed and they punched through an underground cave system used in the old days (for whatever reason I don’t recall). This system of underground tunnels were connected to many buildings in downtown Chicago that completely flooded. They tried dumping trucks (or “lorries” in the UK) full of gravel into the vortex created. They even tried dumping bed mattresses into the vortex.
Very great report on this non fatal disaster. I have seen other reports on this disappearing lake. You seemed to cover the ambiguities very well. Thanks. What a colossal event!
Somewhere out in the internet there's video footage of one of the boaters narrowly escaping being sucked into the whirlpool as the lake was draining. Quite the harrowing scene!
I am a Louisiana native and my class took a trip to Jefferson Island in the early 90's. Quite a beautiful place to visit during the right time of the year.
No mention of whether any of the evacuated people had suffered damages or were compensated. Very interesting story, wish i knew more about how they got their drilling site wrong.
0:16: 🌊 A drilling accident in the Jefferson island mine caused most of a lake to disappear in 1980. 3:52: 🔍 An actor named Joseph Jefferson hired a contractor to drill a well near his home in Louisiana, and they discovered rock salt which could be profitable. 8:06: 🛢 Texaco acquired a license to expand operations in the area and contracted local drilling outfits to drill exploratory wells on land and water. 12:03: 🔧 The drilling rig experienced increasing pressure and weight, causing confusion and worry among the crew. 16:06: 🌊 A well-established mine gets breached by a drilling company, causing a whirlpool in the lake and displacing residents. Recap by Tammy AI
Wow, John and his cartoons and his wonderful storytelling style can make even the sponsor story sound interesting! They really should trust you with a sponsorship much more often 😁😁
Love this channel ❤ John, are you going to do more radiation incidents? Not that I'm not enjoying the current content, just curious because the nuclear stuff is my favourite
@@PlainlyDifficult if you haven't already done one, could you do a beginner's guide to nuclear activity? I don't see how we got from splitting the atom for destruction to harvesting energy. Or why a criticality event has a blue glow, though that may be my favourite thing I've learned from you so far.
@@nerdygoth6905 the blue glow is relatively easy to understand… basically it’s because electrons are moving at the speed of light, c BUT the speed of light in water is slower than c. The blue glow is kinda like a sonic boom but with light. And you don’t see it only in criticality accidents but with nuclear reactors in the cooling water tanks. That’s a simple explanation of the physics. It’s truly fascinating.
PD, have you done a video on the Chicago River accident, where the drilled a hole and flooded part of downtown, Chicago by poking a hole through the river bed into a disused underground railway tunnel of the former Chicago Tunnel Co.?
I'm not scared of much, but mines TERRIFY me to the core. All deep tunnels do. I've had this recurring nightmare of drowing in an underwater cave ever since I was a kid.
I used to be terrified of water and heights, until I started caving (school trip, I didn't want to be that one person who chickened out) 😅 Cut to several years and several million tears later, and I'm actually pretty good at climbing and think the only thing more fun and interesting than caving is mine exploring! (You couldn't pay me enough to go cave diving though, nobody I know would touch that sport with a 10 foot pole, especially given how many cavers have died diving in comparison to every normal part of caving!)
Great video, thank you for making this. I am from this area and remember the day this happened. I have relatives in Delcambre (rhymes with Welcome) who witnessed it happening. The mine was a total loss, but the gardens are still open and you can visit the site. Bizarre and fascinating story.
Great story, your take on it is always interesting! As for PIA, I just finished a 3 year term with them, they do not work with Hulu. You will have to turn the VPN off to watch Hulu, atleast here in the US.
