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X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Anguilla
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DTSTART:19700101T000000
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UID:3783271:Event:802375
DTSTAMP:20260406T021342Z
SUMMARY:The Exploding Whale
DESCRIPTION:\r\nI am of course, referring to the one purposefully blow
 n up in Florence OR.\r\n\r\nOn November 9, 1970, a forty-five-foot, ei
 ght-ton sperm whale washed ashore near Florence on Oregon's south coas
 t  In addition to the stench and the possibility that the body would b
 urst, local officials were concerned that people curious about the car
 cass might climb on it and fall in. The agency responsible for Oregon 
 beaches, the Oregon State Highway Division was called in to remove the
  whale. After consulting with U.S. Navy and munitions experts, Assista
 nt District Highway Engineer George Thornton decided to treat the carc
 ass as a boulder and to use dynamite to dislodge it.\r\nA crowd of spe
 ctators and local reporters gathered on the beach on November 12 about
  a quarter mile from the carcass. The engineers expected the whale to 
 explode into small pieces, which seagulls and other scavengers would t
 ake care of. When Thornton gave the signal, State Highway Division wor
 kers set off a half-ton of dynamite.\r\n“The beach erupted in a 100-
 foot-high column of sand and whale,” Larry Bacon reported in the Re
 gister-Guard. “Chunks of the animal flew in every direction, and spe
 ctators began to scream and run for cover when they glimpsed large pie
 ces soaring directly overhead.” A sedan parked near the onlookers wa
 s crushed by a large chunk of blubber.\r\nWhile no one was harmed by t
 he explosion or the falling debris, chunks of the whale had to be coll
 ected and buried. KATU TV news reporter Paul Linnman provided a memora
 ble account that included this description: “the blast blasted blubb
 er beyond all believable bounds.”\r\nhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E
 xploding_whale\r\n\r\nThe explosion threw whale flesh over 800 feet aw
 ay. American humorist Dave Barr wrote about it in his newspaper column
  in 1990 ( Moby Yuck) after viewing television footage of the explosio
 n, and later the same footage circulated on the Internet. It was also 
 parodied in a 2007 movie\r\nAn example of a spontaneously bursting wha
 le carcass occurred in Taiwan in 2004, when the buildup of gas inside 
 a decomposing sperm whale caused it to burst in a crowded urban area w
 hile it was being transported for a post-mortem examination.\r\n\r\n. 
 Oregon’s current policy is to bury dead beached whales in the sand.\
 r\n\n\nFor more information visit https://agilephilly.ning.com/events/
 the-exploding-whale
DTSTART;TZID=America/Anguilla:20201109T000000
DTEND;TZID=America/Anguilla:20201109T235900
CATEGORIES:historical
LOCATION:a beach in Florence, Oregon
WEBSITE:https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/florence_whale_explosi
 on/#.XoybJiGJKUk
URL:https://oregonencyclopedia.org/articles/florence_whale_explosion/#
 .XoybJiGJKUk
CONTACT:
ORGANIZER:
ATTACH;FMTTYPE="image/jpeg":https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0
 /file/get/8127471490?profile=original
ATTENDEE;ROLE=REQ-PARTICIPANT;PARTSTAT=ACCEPTED;RSVP=TRUE;CN="John Vor
 is, Lead Coordinator":https://agilephilly.ning.com/profile/JohnVoris
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