350 People Left and Never Came Back: Bayou Corne

In the spring of 2012 people living at Bayou Corne in Assumption Parish, Louisiana began reporting gas bubbling up through the water and small tremors underfoot. Nobody could say why. On 3 August a sinkhole opened in the swamp, and about 350 people were ordered to leave. Most of them never came back. What a salt dome is and why companies mine it by dissolving it: water pumped down, brine pumped up, and a cavern left inside the salt. How close to the outer wall of the dome that cavern had come, and who was responsible for knowing. The months of bubbles and tremors before anything visible happened. The third of August, and the footage of a stand of cypress trees being drawn under the surface in seconds. The methane that came up afterwards and the wells drilled to vent it. The company's position that the ground had moved on its own, the state's conclusion that the cavern had breached the dome, and the years of litigation that followed. And the buyouts that ended the community. Nobody was killed here. This is a history of a decision and an argument about cause, not a horror story. Where the record is still contested it is described as contested, and no quotes are invented. How close to the edge of the salt should a cavern be allowed? Leave it in the comments.