"Magazine looks at science behind 1919 molasses disaster" by Colin A. Young | Globe Correspondent, August 14, 2013
Shortly after noon on Jan. 15, 1919, Boston’s North End was shaken by the bursting of a giant iron tank atop the Purity Distilling Co. on Commercial Street. When the 50-foot tank ruptured, an estimated 2.3 million gallons of molasses flooded the streets, killing 21 people and injuring about 150 more.
Science writer Ferris Jabr takes a look at the scientific qualities of molasses in this month’s issue of Scientific American....
“To fully understand this bizarre disaster, we need to examine what makes it unique — its very substance,” Jabr wrote in the article, posted to the magazine’s website....
Such things always make me think of the physical impossibility of those WTC towers falling the way the government says they did. Never before nor since has fired felled steel towers, a unique occurrence indeed.
An explosion, probably caused by a buildup of carbon dioxide inside the tank, burst the tank’s rivets with the sound of gunfire and propelled the molasses into the streets of the North End.
Well, something is giving off a lot of gas.
“In the beginning, the molasses was moving so quickly and there was so much of it that it had enough force to rip buildings apart,” Jabr said in a phone interview. “As it went on, it slowed down and became more and more viscous.”
Within seconds of the initial deluge, two full city blocks were submerged. People on the street were crushed by the massive wave. A large section of the elevated train tracks nearby collapsed. Horses were carried off to their demise or were shot to end their suffering. At least one man was swept away and dropped in Boston Harbor.
“Men and women, their feet trapped by the sticky mass, slipped and fell and were suffocated,” the Globe reported in a 1968 retrospective. “The stronger tried to save others, and many of them died for their heroism.”
What a horrible way to die.
Trying to swim through the molasses would have been futile; anyone trapped in the gelatinous molasses “would stay in place, like a gnat trapped in tree sap,” Jabr wrote.
The faulty tank was used to facilitate the transfer of molasses between ships in Boston Harbor and railroad tank cars and had already raised concerns among residents.
What?
“The tank went up in 1915, and people started complaining that it was leaking. They could see brown streaks coming out from around the rivets,” said Robert J. Allison, chairman of the history department at Suffolk University. “So the company’s response was to paint it all brown.”
The lasting impact of the flood, in addition to the weeks of cleanup and a massive class-action lawsuit, was mandatory inspections of similar tanks, Allison said.
Now, he said, many people think of the flood as a funny anecdote in Boston history.
I never find anything funny when 21 people are killed. I now that's me, and I'm fun or anything, but you know, that's just the way I feel about it.
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I wish the Globe would stop living in the past.
