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The Whale Explosion - 40 Years Later
15 years ago
That whale went KABOOM!
Yes, we've advanced THAT much, the folly of man in its attempt to blow up a beached whale on November 12th, 1970 in the small coastal town of Florence, Oregon.
The footage of that explosion has made the rounds and continues to be one of www.katu.com's most viewed footage. It was their reported, Paul Linman, who covered the explosion and its residual fallout... Of burning whale blubber.
Several years ago, I actually had the opportunity to meet Paul Linman at the KATU studios (right after he came back from China during the SARS outbreak, no less) and the first thing on my mind was "How bad was the whale explosion?" To which he replied, quickly as he was happy to be home again, "Bad."
Even today, both Paul Linman and Doug Brazil are haunted by the odor left behind by that eventful day. Both continue to be contacted by people all over the world regarding the incident.
The Oregon Highway Division (Now known as the Oregon Department of Transportation) decided that, after a beached whale died recently, they were going to literally blow the carcass up with the belief that it would be blown into tiny chunks that seagulls would eat up. It didn't work quite that way.
What ended up happening was most of the whale was left on the beach, while hunks of blubber were blown up to and over a quarter mile away; one car had its roof crushed from the impact and numerous people got sick.
The current solution employed by ODOT is to simply bury the whale under the sand. If there isn't enough sand, they'll transport the carcass to another beach and bury it there.
All-in-all, it was a memorable story from a fairly small town near where I live. I have been to Florence before and saw, roughly, the spot where the whale was. Thankfully no evidence is left.
The footage is easy to fine and if, for whatever reason, you haven't seen it... I'd suggest checking it out. It's morbid, yet funny. It's a wonderful example of how we as a species find solutions; we make good estimates of what should happen. When they don't happen the way we expect them to, we get a good laugh out of it for 40+ years and now use a much more intelligent technique (at least here in Oregon) to deal with dead whales.
...The whole point of this was to add a new journal for myself and come on, awesome anniversary.
Happy 40th Whale Exploding Catastrophe Anniversary! Buy the chitlins presents!
Yes, we've advanced THAT much, the folly of man in its attempt to blow up a beached whale on November 12th, 1970 in the small coastal town of Florence, Oregon.
The footage of that explosion has made the rounds and continues to be one of www.katu.com's most viewed footage. It was their reported, Paul Linman, who covered the explosion and its residual fallout... Of burning whale blubber.
Several years ago, I actually had the opportunity to meet Paul Linman at the KATU studios (right after he came back from China during the SARS outbreak, no less) and the first thing on my mind was "How bad was the whale explosion?" To which he replied, quickly as he was happy to be home again, "Bad."
Even today, both Paul Linman and Doug Brazil are haunted by the odor left behind by that eventful day. Both continue to be contacted by people all over the world regarding the incident.
The Oregon Highway Division (Now known as the Oregon Department of Transportation) decided that, after a beached whale died recently, they were going to literally blow the carcass up with the belief that it would be blown into tiny chunks that seagulls would eat up. It didn't work quite that way.
What ended up happening was most of the whale was left on the beach, while hunks of blubber were blown up to and over a quarter mile away; one car had its roof crushed from the impact and numerous people got sick.
The current solution employed by ODOT is to simply bury the whale under the sand. If there isn't enough sand, they'll transport the carcass to another beach and bury it there.
All-in-all, it was a memorable story from a fairly small town near where I live. I have been to Florence before and saw, roughly, the spot where the whale was. Thankfully no evidence is left.
The footage is easy to fine and if, for whatever reason, you haven't seen it... I'd suggest checking it out. It's morbid, yet funny. It's a wonderful example of how we as a species find solutions; we make good estimates of what should happen. When they don't happen the way we expect them to, we get a good laugh out of it for 40+ years and now use a much more intelligent technique (at least here in Oregon) to deal with dead whales.
...The whole point of this was to add a new journal for myself and come on, awesome anniversary.
Happy 40th Whale Exploding Catastrophe Anniversary! Buy the chitlins presents!
