Tuesday, Mar. 16, 2010
The Dam Busters
File this one under the heading "It Looked Better on Paper." In 1999, presenters at KSJJ Radio in central Oregon announced on air that the Ochoco dam had burst, potentially causing dangerous flooding (is there any other kind?) to downstream areas. Making the hoax more credible was that, during the previous year, hundreds of homes in the region had been damaged for real when the Ochoco creek flooded, meaning that frantic homeowners were now ready to evacuate the area. When the DJs confessed that it was all a joke — they were apparently "having a little fun" — one imagines they didn't just lose lots of listeners but had to put up with a flood (ahem) of complaints for some time to come.