Impact In the 1980’s, Oates built her reputation as
one of America’s most prolific and influential writers
and scholars. By experimenting with different styles
and exploring a wide range of subjects in her writing,
she proved herself to be a highly versatile author. Al-
though her productivity subjected her to more nega-
tive criticism than a writer with a more conservative
output would have received, the sheer diversity and
range of her work, as well as its consistency, have es-
tablished her as a major American writer.
Further Reading
Johnson, Greg.Invisible Writer: A Biography of Joyce
Carol Oates.New York: Plume Books, 1998.
Oates, Joyce Carol.The Faith of a Writer: Life, Craft,
Art.New York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Holly L. Norton
See also Boxing; Feminism; Literature in the United
States; Poetry.
Ocean Rangeroil rig disaster
The Event The largest floating oil rig at the time
capsizes and sinks during a storm
Date February 15, 1982
Place Grand Banks area, about 290 kilometers
(180 miles) east of St. John’s, Newfoundland,
Canada
The disaster demonstrated the vulnerability of technology to
cascading problems as well as the inadequate emergency
preparedness of the crew.
In the early hours of February 15, 1982, the offshore
floating oil drilling rigOcean Rangersank in Cana-
dian waters, killing all eighty-four crew members
onboard. Built by the Ocean Drilling and Explora-
tion Company (ODECO), theOcean Rangerhad
been regarded as indestructible. Because there were
no survivors to provide eyewitness accounts, careful
detective work was required to reconstruct the se-
quence of events that had led to the disaster.
At first, the oil company thought that theOcean
Rangerhad fallen victim to a “gas-loaded ocean,” a
blowout caused by the seafloor suddenly erupting in
an uncontrollable geyser of gas that would fill the
water with so much foam that the rig could no lon-
ger maintain buoyancy. As it happened, nothing
nearly so exotic had occurred. Instead, a storm-
driven wave had broken a glass window, setting off a
cascade of failures that ended in the oil rig losing
control and tipping over. Although some failures
were mechanical, several appear to have been the re-
sult of the crew’s losing their emotional equilibrium
and becoming unable to respond adequately as the
situation spiraled out of control.
The broken glass permitted seawater to enter an
electronic control room in one of the rig’s eight mas-
sive legs, causing short circuits in vital equipment. As
a result, the rig could no longer maintain the water
level in its ballast tanks for trim control (stability and
balance) as heavy equipment was moved to and fro on
the deck. At this point, human error entered the
equation. Delays in shutting off power to the controls
allowed ballast water to continue flowing. Further-
more, once the controls were turned off, the crew no
longer had access to the information they provided
about the status of the trim control system. In re-
sponse, the crew tried to repower the inadequately
dried control boards, leading to more short circuits
and incorrect reballasting that exacerbated the rig’s
growing tilt until a wave could pour water into stor-
age compartments built inside one of the legs, over-
balancing the rig. Finally, the order was given to aban-
don the rig. However, the lifeboats that had worked so
well during drills on calm days became deathtraps for
men trying to escape the listing rig in the violent seas.
The boats smashed against the rig’s steel legs or cap-
sized in the rough water, dooming the crew.
Impact The loss of theOcean Rangerled to a reas-
sessment of disaster preparedness programs, which
had performed drills under only ideal conditions.
In addition, many safety engineers studied the se-
quence of failures in search of ways to break the
chain in future disasters.
Further Reading
Chiles, James R.Inviting Disaster: Lessons from the Edge
of Technology. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.
Places theOcean Rangerdisaster in the larger con-
text of industrial accidents.
U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.Capsizing
and Sinking of the U.S. Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit
Ocean Ranger, Februar y 15, 1982.Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1983. Official re-
port on the incident and its causes.
Leigh Husband KimmelSee also Natural disasters; Science and technology.720 Ocean Rangeroil rig disaster The Eighties in America