Send us a textAfter Kara's eight week long marathon of talking about Prohibition (Kara had been researching this four part series since July!). Ed has decided to get off the editing couch and put together an episode of his own. The Deepwater Horizon drill rig was one of the most powerful and highly regarded oil drilling rigs in the 2000's and for good reason. It held safety records for the longest running times of no serious accidents, it held the record for the deepest well ever drilled on the bottom of the ocean, and the Transocean crews that manned it were some of the most experienced the oil industry could supply. The Deepwater Horizon was heralded as "Lucky" because of its perpetual successes!However, on April 20, 2010, everything changed when the drill rig suddenly exploded at around 10pm at night in a fireball that engulfed the entire rig 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana. This explosion eventually caused the rig to buckle and sink to the bottom of the ocean thus severing an oil pipeline that spewed 210,000 gallons of oil per day into the Gulf of Mexico for over 80 days. This led to the largest oil related disaster in American history. Worse yet, this disaster cost the lives of 11 crewmen working on the rig and on top of all the environmental issues that ensued, many questions remained as to why those 11 men had to die. In this episode Ed will explain:Why does the world revolve around oil (it's not just for gasoline, there are so many other reasons)How to we get it out of the ground, and what happens when there isn't enough land on the planet to support the demand for oilA very brief description as to how deep sea oil drilling worksWhat was the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible drill rigAnd lastly, what events incited the most horrific oil related disaster in historyIn case you want more, check out these other related episodes:First Oil Spill Disaster - The incident involving the Torrey Canyon oil tanker running aground near EnglandByford Dolphin Incident - The incident involving an explosive decompression of 4 saturation divers which killed them instantly in a gruesome manner. You can find the above episodes plus so much more at thedaysdumpsterfire.com Hey before you go! If have ideas for future episodes that you want Kara and Ed to look into, email them at [email protected]. They would love to hear from you! You can also send them a text message by clicking on the link at the top. Be sure to head on over to www.thedaysdumpsterfire.com for the ever growing library of historical dumpster fires. Check us out on the ol Instagrams!https://www.instagram.com/thedaysdumpsterfire/

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