CONFIRMED: Salt cavern below sinkhole has failed

I live 20 minutes away and here the people don't seem to be that worried about it. But I have heard that residents who have tried to get answers regarding how close its getting to the butane with worries of having to evacuate and leave their homes, with no luck whatsoever. Unfortunately, I am in the blast radius if this thing were to breach the butane area and it ignite [which is highly possible with all the machinery nearby.] not to mention the various chemical refineries in the blast vicinity which would probably cause a domino effect. Whoever is involved with trying to stop this thing from spreading further are being very quiet about this which doesn't give me a great feeling. If I hear of anything new that isn't covered by online media, I will post it up.

reply to post by Sporatux
Thank you for letting us know we have an ATS memeber in the area. I do wonder why they are not to concerned. With things bubbling and leaking, I would be highly concerned. What is in the water? Have you tried to light you water?

This is a link to the story that first got my attention. Since this the situation has begun to snowball.
Mysterious bubbles in Bayou Corne. Homes shifting around nearby

Somebody asks what the potential blast effect would be, and ive rerad it would be atomic sized......
900,000 gallons of butane is a lot of stored energy.
The explosive force would be very large indeed.
If there is any level of radioactivity, in the cavern, it would equal a huge dirty bomb....spreading radioactive crap for a long ways......

reply to post by stirling


Sinkhole area residents fear explosion after 1000s of quakes and dangerously high levels of hydrocarbons fill swampland area

Thursday night, Bayou Corne and area residents gathered to share their fear of an explosion and gather information they say they are not getting from Unified Command, government officials representing seven government agencies involved in the disaster.

The residents have been subjected to thousands of earthquakes and methane gas leaking in their community.

Dr. Wilma Subra had released a report earlier Thursday indicating that the sinkhole is over half-full of hydrocarbons possibly in the flammable range.

There is no fire ban in the sinkhole area, as Assumption Parish officials have repeatedly advised.

Report on 9/21/12 Source

I have been following this story for a while. I keep reading about all of the seismic activity that caused the dome to collapse and all of the earthquakes that it has created by collapsing. Why has the USGS not listed one quake for that area in months? Everything I read say the quakes are minor (1- 3 magnitude); but, there are not even any one-pointers listed.

It won't be long before some drunk throws a road flare at that site to see what happens.

Do they have security around it yet?

Help me out here a bit, just a few Q's:

1) how wide is this thing? I saw both "475 feet" and "4 acres". I assume the first number is an old measurement, but is this thing REALLY 4 acres of land mass that just dropped?

2) how deep is it? I read twice that it was 1300 ft Shallower than expected. That something had fallen in.

3) does any single one of those folks have a real grasp of this? Or was the poor man in the know kicked into the Pit of Dispair by Leonidas? It is, afterall, an election year


Imagine, if you will, a sudden change in geography. It happens alot. Sand dunes fall into the sea. In Alaska a few weeks ago a landslide with a leading edge of 5 miles went unrecorded for about two weeks. No one had flown over.

reply to post by supertrot


I could be wrong but man mad eq are not listed only natural but they are monitoring the situation.

“USGS is continuously monitoring this activity,” parish officials said.


The amount of butane in the Crosstex cavern was later reported to be 940,000 barrels.

Independent scientists have disagreed that there was “no danger” posed by Crosstex’s butane. The company’s previous calculations related to its butane well safety was based on flawed science, scientists reported.

Radiation is 15 times the state's acceptable level in the sinkhole area.

A fish kill in the sinkhole waterways since it was pounded by then Hurricane Isaac raised more worry about potable water. Source

reply to post by SeenAlot


well as of 9/24 they say

Aerial photographs taken Saturday indicate that the irregular sinkhole ranges from 409 feet to 486 feet across, and is about 100 feet wider than it was a month ago, said John Boudreaux, director of the Assumption Parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said.

"In general, there's been about 50-foot growth on about the east and the west," he said. Source

2nd not sure about fallen in but it did fill up with something maybe from the salt dome that has been confirmed to be collapsed somewere in that hole.

BAYOU CORNE, LA (WAFB) -
A failed cavern is believed to be responsible for the sinkhole in Assumption Parish.

"Our fears and suspicions have been confirmed," Martin Triche, president of the Assumption Parish Police Jury. "The cavern had failed." Source

That site that I got kicked off of always posted this place: folkworm.ceri.memphis.edu... for info on tremor activity. Please note I have been told that this site is not accurate.


So are these readings correct? I have no clue but they are showing something vs. USGS showing nothing. Maybe the experts on here would like to chime in.

BTW- what is that bizarre line at 21:00?

reply to post by lurksoften


Pack it up. We are moving, honey.

I love hearing the official multi syllabic way they say "I got no idea what's going on. And I hope the brown stain in my pants doesn't show"

Move. Now.

reply to post by Pervius


I would hope so as they do also have alot of equipment involved in the drilling process into the cavern and only
thing i could find about that was when the hurricane passed over the sink hole there were 4000 National Guardsmen, securing sinkhole equipment but pretty sure they are gone now lol

nothing will be done until it explodes...if people live around there knowing this could happen...well...it'll thin the gene pool, that's for sure.... it's texas for christ's sakes, they don't give a damn about people, unless those people interfere with the profits of businesses, or the wealthy.

reply to post by jimmyx


toad, that was some clip on page 1, I never heard of it, oil drillers drilled into the salt mine, thank god that god no one was killed.

Originally posted by thePharaoh
ok...is there a "part one" that im missing.....im baffled..whats going on...is texas sinking?

Yeah I'm with you. This gets a big so what from me.

reply to post by qmantoo


crisis ?

Originally posted by karen61057

Originally posted by thePharaoh
ok...is there a "part one" that im missing.....im baffled..whats going on...is texas sinking?

Yeah I'm with you. This gets a big so what from me.

The sinkhole is in Louisiana not Texas. This could be the reason why this sinkhole is causing concern:

“The disaster is made all the more worrisome because the hole is believed to be close to a well containing 1.5 million barrels of liquid butane, a highly volatile liquid that turns into a highly flammable vapor upon release,” CNN reported Friday about Louisiana's declared State of Emergency. Earlier it was reported the butane-filled well is only 1500 feet from the sinkhole and it will not be emptied. A breach of that well, Assumption Parish Sheriff Mike Waguespack said, could be "catastrophic,” CNN reports.

Here is the link, this article is old and from the Examiner (IMO they sensationalize some things). Sinkhole: H-Bomb explosion equivalent in Bayou Corne possible

The sinkhole keeps expanding, homes have been evacuated for a month plus. Some are worried because of the location and New Madrid. Some are worried about the butane blowing or being released. I am concerned about the environmental impact and the possibility that these people may have had contaminates in their water and air.

reply to post by AuntB


Suddenly I got interested in this!

CERI is a perfectly reliable source and feeds into IRIS. The seismo shown is not showing earthquakes, that much I can tell you, but I cannot tell immediately what it is showing.

I was a bit staggered to read there had been thousands of quakes because I am certain that if they were recorded I would have noticed.

Too late to look at anything here tonight but I shall be looking into this tomorrow.

Here is a link from today regarding the salt cavern : The Advocate

I was disappointed reading this article. No mention of safety concerns. Just politics and greed about responsibility. The owner's of the salt cavern are saying earthquakes caused the collapse, but the USGS says the collapse caused the seismicity....

I worry for those residents.