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Located about 45 miles south of Baton Rouge, Assumption Parish
carries all the charms and curses of southern Louisiana. Networks of
bayous, dotted with trees heavy with Spanish moss, connect with the
Mississippi River as it slowly ambles toward the Gulf of Mexico.
Fishermen and farmers make their homes there, and so does the oil and
gas industry, which has woven its own network of wells, pipelines and
processing facilities across the lowland landscape.
The first sign of the oncoming disaster was the mysterious
appearance of bubbles in the bayous in the spring of 2012. For months the
residents of a rural community in Assumption Parish wondered why the
waters seemed to be boiling in certain spots as they navigated the bayous
in their fishing boats.
Then came the earthquakes. The quakes were relatively small, but
some residents reported that their houses shifted in position, and the
tremors shook a community already desperate for answers. State officials
launched an investigation into the earthquakes and bubbling bayous in
response to public outcry, but the officials figured the bubbles were caused
by a single source of natural gas, such as a pipeline leak. They were
wrong.
On a summer night in early August, the earth below the Bayou Corne,
located near a small residential community in Assumption, simply opened
up and gave way. Several acres of swamp forest were swallowed up and
replaced with a gaping sinkhole that filled itself with water, underground
brines, oil and natural gas from deep below the surface. Since then, the
massive sinkhole at Bayou Corne has grown to 8 acres in size.
On August 3, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal declared a statewide
emergency, and local officials in Assumption ordered the mandatory
evacuation of about 300 residents of more than 150 homes located about a
half-mile from the sinkhole. Four months later, officials continue to tell
residents that they do not know when they will be able to return home. A
few have chosen to ignore the order and have stayed in their homes, but
the neighborhood is now quiet and nearly vacant. Across the road from the
residential community, a parking lot near a small boat launch ramp has