Synopsis

This explores some of the most striking engineering failures of recent times, seeking to understand where things went wrong and what lessons were drawn from those experiences. We journey to the southern coast of Louisiana, where a mispositioned oil rig triggered the alarming disappearance of an entire lake into an underground salt mine; we revisit the devastating 1972 Buffalo Creek dam disaster; we examine the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill; we observe the unsettling frequency with whic