This year is the 50th anniversary of what stands out as one of the more bizarre events in American history. It is best described as the “Exploding Whale” story. In November of 1970, a 45-foot, eight-ton whale washed up on a beach off the coastal city of Florence, Oregon. For this community of 9,000 or so residents, the beached whale was undoubtedly an interesting oddity for a while, but the novelty wore off quickly as the smell from the rotting carcass became overwhelming. The city government of Florence was presented with quite a problem — how does one remove a 45-foot, eight-ton dead whale who has inconveniently parked itself on the beach and is certainly not going to wash itself away?

Florence, Oregon had no answers, so they passed it off to the county. Florence is in Lane County, and Lane County government did not include removing massive beached dead whales in any of their planning scenarios, so they wisely passed it off to the Oregon state government. Now, Oregon also does not have a specific department devoted to massive beached dead whales either, so the problem got passed around until it finally found its way to becoming the responsibility of the Oregon State Highway Division. They did not have in their equipment inventory a vehicle designed to move eight-ton whales either, so they came up with a novel idea.

Since they could not bury it, burn it, or cut it up, they decided to blow it up. The idea was that by exploding the carcass, the seagulls would come and eat the small pieces off the beach, and thus the problem would be solved. No one knew how much TNT to use, so they decided to start with half-a-ton of explosives, and if more were needed to get any larger chunks leftover, they would blow those up as well.

What happened must be seen to be believed. Using the search for “Exploding Whale 1970” on YouTube will access the original television station KATU Channel 2 report on this historic event. The viewer should be warned not to eat or drink when watching this three-and-a-half-minute clip because there is a serious danger from choking with laughter.

The whale did indeed blow up, but the results were not exactly what was expected. Carcass pieces were not tiny tidbits for seagulls, but massive pieces of blubber that traveled as far as a quarter-mile away landing on cars and even demolishing some of them. Miraculously no one was killed or injured, but almost everyone in the vicinity was covered in whale blubber debris of one kind or another.

This amusing historical event has lessons that can be learned about dealing with a unique problem. In almost every case, it would seem that our country, and Pennsylvania in particular, has approached the COVID virus like the dead beached whale. It cannot be ignored, and it will not go away by itself. The “nuclear” option used by the Oregon government to remove its whale had side effects that were worse than the beached whale itself. In our present situation, shutting down a nation’s economy that was at the time roaring at a record-setting pace was a “nuclear” option that our country will be paying for (literally!) for decades to come.

Figuratively speaking, the Lycoming County Commissioners are cleaning up the blubber with the prospects of lower revenue due to a smaller tax base and also smaller program funds expected in the future coming from Harrisburg. They will have many pleading for tax breaks due to the shutdowns, appeals on property assessments, and at the same time, cries for more funding for a host of very worthy endeavors.

This is one reason why the commissioners’ meetings have stretched in the past couple of months from a normal one-hour session to more like two hours plus. To make matters worse, it is as if pieces of blubber are still falling because the county is still under restrictions to normal activities. To their credit, commissioners Metzger, Mussare, and Mirabito are working overtime to come up with the best solutions (that don’t involve TNT) to resolving the confusion, conflicts and controversies they are facing daily.

Here is hoping that as Lycoming County wades through the mire that has been caused through these mandatory shutdowns, the commissioners will come up with creative solutions in moving the county forward. The ‘exploding whale’ debacle was a learning experience for Oregon, and in fact, as part of the fiftieth anniversary of the event, they have recently christened a new state coastal park, the Exploding Whale State Park. They learned from their mistake and gained from it. It rained blubber but it made them better.