Fifty years ago today, the people of Oregon blew a beached whale to kingdom come. The whale was long dead and had been sinking up the beach so local authorities decided to use a half-ton of TNT to blow it into pieces. The explosion was bigger than anyone had expected.
When a 45-foot, 8-ton whale washed ashore on a beach near Florence in November 1970, the Department of Transportation had a stinky situation on its hands. They had to figure out what to do with the massive corpse.
It had been so long since a whale had washed up in Lane County, that no one could remember how to get rid of one.
