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Attempts to Save the World That Went Disastrously Wrong

Khalid Elhassan December 13, 2023 27 min

Misguided - Philadelphia's 1918 parade amidst the Spanish Flu pandemic — Philadelphia's 1918 parade amidst the Spanish Flu pandemic. US Naval History and Heritage Command

A Dynamite Idea

A reporter covers Florence’s beached whale. KVAL

To get rid of the whale carcass, the authorities eventually turned to dynamite: twenty cases, or half a ton of it. A military veteran with explosives training happened to be in the area, and he warned that twenty cases of dynamite was way too much. His advice that a mere twenty sticks of dynamite would be enough was ignored by the authorities. They had the misguided notion that a massive blast would disintegrate the whale, and result in small pieces that would then be consumed by scavengers. As an Oregon Highway Division official told news reporters about the authorities’ idea for getting rid of the dead whale:

“Well, I’m confident that it’ll work. The only thing is, we’re not sure just exactly how much explosives it will take to disintegrate this thing, so the scavengers, seagulls, and crabs and whatnot can clean it up“. Dynamite was buried beneath the whale, primarily on the landward side so most of the carcass would get blown into the ocean. Scores of bystanders gathered to watch the spectacle, and were moved back about a quarter of a mile away as a safety precaution. The onlookers cheered when the dynamite was detonated at 3:45 PM, on November 12th, 1970.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.