Walter Umenhofer’s new car was parked a quarter-mile from the blast when a chunk of whale landed on its roof. “My insurance company will never believe it,” he said, according to a 1970 story in the Siuslaw News.
The trouble began on Nov. 9, 1970, when a dead sperm whale washed ashore near Florence, on the Oregon coast. It was 45 feet long and weighed about eight tons, per the Oregon Encyclopedia. The Oregon State Highway Division, now the Oregon Department of Transportation, got the job of getting rid of it.
Burying the whale would not work, because the tides would uncover it, according to ODOT’s employee newspaper. After consulting the Navy, the crew settled on dynamite, expecting the blast to scatter the remains and the seagulls to clean up the rest. Assistant district engineer George Thornton treated the carcass like a boulder, per the Oregon Encyclopedia.
The charge was a half-ton of dynamite, or 20 cases. Not everyone thought it was wise. Umenhofer, a spectator with military explosives experience, thought too much was being used, according to Dave Barry, and Offbeat Oregon says he suggested about 20 sticks. “Well, I’m confident that it will work,” Thornton said, per the Siuslaw News.
On Nov. 12 at 3:45 p.m., with spectators moved back a quarter-mile, the plunger went down. A plume of sand and whale rose 100 feet, and chunks of blubber flew toward the crowd, according to the Siuslaw News. KATU reporter Paul Linnman put it this way: “The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds.” No one was hurt, though Linnman noted that “no human was hurt as badly as the car.”
Umenhofer’s car did not get off so lightly. A hunk of blubber crushed the roof, and the state later reimbursed him, per Mental Floss. Accounts differ on what kind of car it was.
Thornton had a prediction. He told ODOT’s employee newspaper in 1994 that he had warned his supervisors that “usually when something happens like this, the person ends up getting promoted.” “Sure enough, about six months later, I got promoted to Medford.”
Oregon now buries beached whales instead of blasting them. In 1979, officials buried 41 sperm whales that washed ashore, per the Oregon Encyclopedia. The story went viral after a May 20, 1990, column by Dave Barry, and in June 2020, Florence dedicated Exploding Whale Memorial Park, per Live Science. Residents proposed 124 names, and the winner got 439 of 856 votes in the final survey.
Ocean cleanup ideas have gone wrong before. In 1972, Florida fishermen sank 2 million old tires off Fort Lauderdale to build a reef, and it damaged the real reefs instead.
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