From Blubber to Memorial Park: Oregon's Exploding Whale Tale
In 1970, Florence, Oregon highway crews blasted a beached eight-ton sperm whale with half a ton of dynamite to send it out to sea, but the blast showered the beach with whale fragments and even crushed a spectator’s car; the mishap led to changes in how beached whales are handled and, in 2020, inspired naming the site Exploding Whale Memorial Park as a civic lesson about the limits of engineering and the enduring power of a viral moment.