Ripple Rock
F. Lee, local historian, information gatherer, straight shooter, valued friend and long time reader of Astoria Rust is also a frequent contributor to the Astoria Rust Forum. He posted the photo above a couple days ago and I asked him about it. His reply:
It's the removal of Ripple Rock in 1958 at Seymour Narrows up the Inside Passage. I remember when it happened because all 2 or 3 of the Portland tv stations prempted regular programming to cover it for what seemed like hours we watched a flickering image of a tranquil scene; then kaboom!!! Supposedly the largest non-nuclear man made explosion in world history and judging by the photo I couldn't disagree. I was 7 at the time and my world view was pretty limited- so for a long time I assumed it was on the Columbia River because it looked so much like here.
Here is a very cool video he found on You Tube, Ripple Rock.
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
6 Comments:
And to think nowadays it would only be a short segment on the news. A mere curiosity, rather than a serious news item. Lots of cool videos, tho. Even without the rock there, that's still a pretty bad place to take a boat, it seems. I'll remember to avoid that spot.
It seems that the news media loves explosions like the Seattle dome or what ever that arena was called. The Trojan nuclear cooling tower was another big hit, and then there was Mt St Helens. They are still covering that one.
It's one of those odd things I just can't help being fascinated by. Must be a "Guy" thing, eh? (grin)
Imagine the greepeacers, rivercreepers, et al would just go bonkers if someone tried to do something like that in this era...
Darev, the two guy things are explosions and holes. Can't resist them...
FLee, Think of the underwater concussion wave. It would kill sea lions ; )
Sure wouldn't wanna hurt a sealion, oh hell no..
I remember as a kid they're werent any of those goddamn California sealions here..there were Stellars, yeah, but they stayed pretty much off the end of the jetties...didnt come upriver like those california monsters do.....but, there were seals a plenty, lots of'em...of course they were dealt with by the fishermen, the packers and the state as best they could...I remember them using "seal hooks", a clever but very inhumane method of population control. I'll spare the gory details, but if someone laid some of those out now they'd probably get years in prison for it, not to mention condemned to Hell everlasting by the enviros. One of the best ideas proposed but never implemented was aerial attack. A friend of mines dad was a crop duster who lived here but worked on the other side of the mountains. Anyway, he was an accomplished P-47 pilot in Europe during the war-it was proposed that the state or somebody provide a fighter plane or rig a crop duster with multiple machine guns-the plan was to strafe the pinipeds at low water on Desdemona and the upper sands..now THAT would'a been something to see. They were all for it but like lots of great ideas someone shitcanned it before it could become a reality
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