The Day the Whale Exploded: How a Town Tried Dynamite and Blew Its Mind
It Begins, As All Good Stories Do, With a Dead Whale
On November 12, 1970, the quiet town of Florence, Oregon, met with a problem no one had prepared for:
A dead, 45-foot-long whale.
The creature, an 8-ton sperm whale, had washed ashore and been rotting for days, baking under the autumn sun, expanding with gases, and gifting beachgoers the aromatic horror of warm marine decomposition.
It was, quite literally, a ticking time bomb of blubber.
And someone had to do something about it.
The Town That Blew a Whale Sky-High
So what did Florence do?
Did they bury the whale?
Tow it out to sea?
Cut it into pieces?
No.
They blew it up.
With half a ton of dynamite.
And that is how one of the strangest (and most delightfully misguided) moments in American history came to be known as:
The Exploding Whale Incident.
Why Blow It Up? The Logic (Sort Of)
Let’s give some credit where credit is due.
At the time, Oregon’s Highway Division (now ODOT) was in charge of clearing roadkill and other obstructions. Technically, the whale was in their jurisdiction.
And the logic, strange as it seems, went something like this:
Use dynamite to disintegrate the whale.
Blow it into small enough chunks that seagulls and scavengers would dispose of it.
Let nature finish the cleanup.
What could possibly go wrong?
The Setup: A Recipe for Disaster
Engineer George Thornton was put in charge of the plan.
He consulted with a former military explosives expert, who told him 20 sticks of dynamite would do the job.
Thornton decided to use 20 cases instead.
That’s 900 pounds.
Why? Because “the whale might be bigger than it looks.”
And so, on that fateful Thursday, a crowd gathered a safe distance away. Reporters rolled camera. Children laughed. Seagulls circled, ready for their sky buffet.
The dynamite was set.
The fuse lit.
The countdown began.
And then…boom.
The Result: Raining Blubber and Broken Cars
It didn’t go as planned.
Chunks of whale were launched hundreds of feet into the air, some as heavy as 100 pounds.
One piece smashed the roof of a parked car.
Another splattered a nearby building.
People screamed.
Children cried.
Reporters ducked for cover.
The seagulls?
They fled.
Turns out, even scavengers have standards.
The beach was now littered with enormous chunks of whale, more than before, and far more gruesome to collect.
The whale had not been removed. It had been redistributed.
The News Coverage That Made It Immortal
Local reporter Paul Linnman, there to cover the event for KATU-TV, described the aftermath with what can only be called journalistic restraint:
"The blast blasted blubber beyond all believable bounds."
His footage…complete with explosion, chaos, and raining meat…became legendary.
Years later, the video went viral again with the rise of YouTube. The incident was revived, re-shared, and meme-ified into the cultural consciousness.
Today, it’s taught in PR classes, disaster response training, and even appears in children's books (no, really).
What Went Wrong (Scientifically Speaking)
Let’s break this down like a dissection tray in biology class:
Decomposition gas buildup made the whale unstable.
Too much dynamite sent pieces outward instead of downward.
Poor containment planning meant there was no control over the blast radius.
Expectation that birds would clean up? Pure fantasy. Birds don’t eat whale shrapnel.
What Oregon learned that day is that nature is not solved with brute force.
It requires strategy, respect, and maybe a bit less hubris.
So What Do You Actually Do With a Dead Whale?
In the decades since, we’ve gotten smarter (thankfully).
Here are a few now-standard approaches:
Towing the whale back out to sea using tugboats.
Burying it deeply in the sand (at least 6–10 feet).
Composting or rendering in facilities for scientific or agricultural purposes.
Letting marine scavengers eat it naturally if it’s in a remote, safe location.
And yes…sometimes, if absolutely necessary, small-scale detonation is still used. But never like Florence.
Never with fanfare.
And never with 900 pounds of boom.
Why This Story Still Resonates
It’s more than just an amusing disaster.
It’s a parable.
It reminds us:
That good intentions can explode in our face.
That simple problems often require thoughtful answers.
That overkill is rarely the right solution (pun fully intended).
It’s also a celebration of the human tendency to try before thinking, to act big and fix later.
And it’s kind of…beautiful in its absurdity.
What It Teaches About Crisis Management
If you run a business, a household, or just your own very tired life, the exploding whale teaches a few real lessons:
Know your materials. (Dead whale ≠ dirt pile.)
Scale your solution to the size of the problem.
Ask experts, and listen to them.
Sometimes less is more.
Don’t ignore the optics.
If it looks like it might end in flying meat...it might.
Want to Read More Weird Science?
Today, You Can Visit the Site
There’s a memorial plaque in Florence now. A little nod to the day dynamite met biology and lost.
It reads:
“Exploding Whale Memorial Park.”
You can stand there, listen to the waves, and imagine the sound…the slap, the boom, the bewildered silence after.
It’s peaceful now.
But if you listen carefully…
you might still hear the faint echo of whale rain.
\The World Needs Stories Like This
The exploding whale isn’t just about a bad decision.
It’s about how humans respond to absurdity: with action, with optimism, with just enough madness to make history.
We need stories like this.
We need to laugh at ourselves, to learn with humility, to remember that sometimes, the weirdest moments are the most enduring.
So the next time you’re facing something too big to bury, too smelly to ignore, pause.
Breathe.
And maybe...don’t reach for dynamite.
