Gadgetory

in our particular spot it was a place that's rare that if you forgot to lock your door at night it wasn't that big of a deal if she didn't was I didn't lock my car doors when I got there if I wanted to I could have left the keys in it neighbors looking out watching was calm quiet anyone else I mean it was just nakhon Texas brine which is the company that has been mining this area that sinkhole sits over a salt dome and it's believed that there's a cavern in there that has collapsed Rock went from this to this a thing called the size of 20 football field officials here declared a code three alert which is the highest form of readiness after the sinkhole started bubbling swirling and swallowing more trees a year ago there was seismic activity in this area which is odd we don't have earthquakes in south Louisiana we have hard we traded hurricanes for earthquakes we have plenty of hurricanes we'll have earthquakes so when there was seismic activity in the Bayou people started to get worried back on May 12th 2012 my wife and I we took the boat out one afternoon just taking a little leisurely ride that something we just often do just the relax go down the bayou and take a ride we're going about a half a mile down the bayou and when I got to the pipeline crossing without where they're known there are three known pipelines that crossed I noticed some unusual bubbling at first I passed it up then I turned it around I went back look again they know this doesn't look right you know one morning the bubbles appeared no one really knew what it was that was causing these bubbles in the bayous nearby and and a lot of investigation took place and then on August 3rd 2012 our employees came to work and looked out and the swamp it disappeared a state of emergency was declared an evacuation order was issued at cetera et cetera if you look out there but 40 feet that bubbling spot that is a natural gas bubbling up through the water that is methane gas that's coming up your main concern with methane is it is highly flammable and if you get a big concentration of it you get explosion you hear in the cities you hear of gas explosions where somebody's had a leak they didn't know about or left the stove on or whatever was gets a spark well gas has been blowing and you lose a whole city block that's the similar concern we have here that this gas did build up in a back room in a closet underneath a house in enough of a concentration to where spark somebody flipping a light switch somebody stacked discharged whatever could set off an explosion it was a house lose several houses and it was a life to this point we've had no injuries we've had no deaths associated with this and we really really want to keep it that way we currently have air monitoring equipment that we had in place early in its event that air monitoring equipment actually transmits to the command post here currently there's over 300 instruments that that go here to the command post typically you get here about 7:30 8 o'clock in the morning wanted email I typically make a initial round around the sinkhole and the community the danger is with methane so it's lel lower explosive limit oh this is one of the flares this flare is gathering natural gas that is being removed through our vent wells that at that surface of the plumbing that depth of about 150 feet into the aquifer the gas is flowing up through the well is being collected at several different sites and then it's all being channeled into this single flare and that's how we're we're you know that's one of the processes we're using to to to remove the gas from the aquifer we've got seismic monitoring in the salt at surface in the area above the salt to determine monitor I guess the ongoing stability of the dome itself so if all we get we catch the seismic movement got some activity follow-on from the fact that dome collapse and that changes you know the weights and the rock stresses all around there we're expecting that that's what you expect to happen after you see in a sudden event like that while it was a man-made action that started this its geology and you know natural forces that are driving they're making everything happen for now in geology happens slow we have nothing to hide the this event took place we own this sinkhole it's on our property we are responding is the best of our ability you know where this is there's not a file cabinet back at the offices what to do in case there's a sinkhole this is not a curse this is a a unique phenomenon it's being studied by scientists all over the world has never happened anywhere else we yes we know that this sinkhole is connected to our Brian Cameron it's on our property the unanswered question is what caused the actual breach whenever the the incident first happened with the the sinkhole they finally came out and said that it was a mandatory evacuation and for me mandatory means something you have to do so I did it and we didn't think it would like go on for very long I thought it would be just maybe week or two I didn't really ever understand completely what had happened at first mandatory evacuation is established in law is called disaster Acton in Louisiana mandatory evacuation basically means that the risk is present and everyone should heed that risk because it is in the present but if you do not you're taking that risk upon yourself the authorities are telling them it's not safe to live there and so if it's not safe to live there and they can't live there because of the sinkhole and because of the gas coming from the sinkhole then these people have absolutely suffered damages and they're saying that not only is it not safe now but we don't know when it will be safe and we don't know if in three years you can move back we don't know if in five years where you can move back the latest I heard was that they think that in three to five years it will stop moving stop moving doesn't mean we don't even know what what it's going to look like in three to five years just when asked for everybody's prayers because um a lot of us are in and night we're not in good condition here paradise is not lost yet right now the the sinkhole that's the water the contaminated water which is saltwater Brian hydrocarbons it is contained by a levee it is contained by a burn if you go right on the outside of the sinkhole the swamp right there on is still pristine I mean you see fish you'll see alligators you see birds you see wildlife Bayou corne itself still remains a very beautiful place I mean as you can see right here so uh all is not lost as some people would have you believe Bayou corne will never be what it was I know this they'll get me wrong we have a serious problem in the area that's within the levee of the sinkhole that area is pretty much lost forever you know those cypress trees will never come back but the entire area is not is not gone we're still hanging in