this is K2 news the spirit of the Northwest it had to be said the Oregon State Highway division not only had a whale of a problem on its hands it had a stinking whale of a problem what to do with one 45 ft 8ton whale dead on a Ral on the beach near Florence it had been so long since a whale had washed up in Lane County nobody could remember how to get rid of one in selecting its battle plan the highway division decided the carcass couldn't be buried because it might soon be uncovered it couldn't be cut up and then buried because nobody wanted to cut it up and it couldn't be burned so Dynamite it was some 20 cases or a half ton of it the Hope was that the long dead Pacific gray whale would be almost disintegrated by the blast and that small pieces still around after the explosion would be taken care of by seagull and other scavengers well I'm confident that it'll work the only thing is we're not sure just exactly how much explosives it'll take to disintegrate this thing so the scavenger seagull and crabs and whatnot can clean it up the dynamite was buried primarily on the leward side of the big mammal so as most of the remains would be blown toward the sea about 75 bystanders most of them residents who had first found the whale to be an object of curiosity before they tired of its smell were moved back a quarter of a mile away all right Fred you can f your hands out of your ear Here Comes pieces of our camera stopped rolling immediately after the blast the humor of the entire situation suddenly gave way to a run for survival as huge chunks of whale blubber fell everywhere a parked car over a quarter of a mile from the blast site was the target of one large chunk the passenger compartment literally smashed fortunately no human was hit as badly as the car however everyone on the scene was covered with small particles of dead whale as Darkness began to set in the highway Crews were back on the beach burying The Remains including a large piece of the carcass which never left the blast sight it might be concluded that should a whale ever wash ashore in Lane County again those in charge will not only remember what to do they'll certainly remember what not to do