The link will take you the video news story, spending a little over three minutes of coverage by an earnest, hot combed, frat boy haircut newsman, who points to the beached whale and interviews George Thornton of the State Highway Division on whose shoulders the removal of the whale has fallen.
You might think it is somewhat reassuring that someone at the state level is in charge, but when you listen to the interview with George you start to wonder about the whole thing.
First off, it doesn't seem there is much precedent in this kind of beached whale removal. George freely admits that the half-ton of explosive might not do the job of blasting the whale to Kingdom Come in the hopes that the fragments will be small enough for the vast army of sea gulls to finish the cleanup job by chowing down on the pieces.
In fact, if you remember how inaccurate the effects of dynamite can be, you realize George just might be winging it there. Just think of that memorable scene in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid where Butch is frustrated with the mail clerk Woodcock's reluctance in opening the railcar door to reveal where the money is kept.
Pleading with Woodcock is to no avail. Woodcock is a company man, and Butch can't have access to his employer's mail vault. Butch orders dynamite to be rigged to the door. How much dynamite? Well, Butch is winging it. He probably never studied the effects of dynamite in school, and even if he did, he's probably bad at math and forgets to divide by something.
Sundance stuffs the door with an indeterminate amount of dynamite, that when set off does indeed blow the door off the rail car. It also has enough force that the safe inside is blown apart and the sky fills up with Uncle Sam greenbacks fluttering down from the sky. Sundance slyly asks if Butch used enough dynamite.
Since there are onlookers at the beach for the November detonation, they are advised to get back at least a quarter of a mile. They do. The dynamite is detonated, and the result is well, less effective than expected.
Large chunks of blubber rain down on the site, just like Butch's rail car money. A car in the parking lot is totally flattened. No one is hurt, but you have to wonder of the State Farm spokesman, J.K. Simmons would be bragging about the unique situations that State Farm Insurance has covered: namely vehicle destroyed by blasted whale blubber. I bet the owner of that car in the parking didn't get any money right away. Or any at all. They certainly needed a ride home.
As for the hoped for natural cleanup by hungry seagulls, it never happens. The seagulls fly away, scared by the blast, and the truly terrible odor that is now in the air.
George Thornton and his crew shake their heads, and decide that a second charge won't be done. They'll bury what's left.
I know every so often a whale gets stranded on the shores of Rockaway Beach in Queens. They've tried to drag a still living whale back into the ocean, but if DOA, they bury it. I don't recall anything as big as the monster that landed in Florence, Oregon as washing ashore in the NYC area. I really doubt detonation would be considered. Blowing up dead whales just might be the last thing even New Yorkers will tolerate.
Aside from the memories of that 1970 event coming to a Twitter feed near you, you have to take note of who posted it, Sarah Lyall, @SarahLyall, a veteran, at-large-reporter for the NYT who also does book review duty.
You have to wonder how this refined woman came to post the archival video from a posting by @RexChapman.
There's a whale of a story behind the whale story.
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