The Day a Lake Disappeared: The Lake Peigneur Disaster | CURIO #001

On November 20, 1980, something extraordinary happened in Louisiana. A drilling operation beneath Lake Peigneur triggered a chain of events that caused the lake to drain into an underground salt mine. A drilling rig, barges and other equipment were pulled into the enormous whirlpool, while the flow of a nearby canal was eventually reversed. What had been a shallow freshwater lake was transformed forever. In this Curio mini-documentary, we explore what happened at Lake Peigneur, how an oil-drilling operation intersected with an underground salt mine, why the lake began disappearing, and what happened in the aftermath. Most remarkably, despite the scale of the disaster, everyone working in the mine and on the drilling rig escaped. Based on historical records, contemporary reporting and archival sources. #LakePeigneur #Documentary #History #Curio