On January 15, 1919, The Great
Molasses Flood happened in Boston Massachusetts. Tankers filled with 2.3
million gallons of molasses burst. A thirty-five mile an hour wave of molasses
swept through the town, killing 21 and injuring 150.
How bizarre is that?
The Great Molasses Flood largely happened
in the North End neighborhood at the Purity Distilling Company facility on 529
Commercial Street near Keany Square. The company used the Harborside Commercial
Street tank to offload molasses from ships and store it for later transfer by
pipeline to the Purity ethanol plant situated on Willow Street in Cambridge.
In this case, the company had
stored a molasses tank that stood 50 ft tall and 90 ft in diameter and
contained as much as 2.3 million gallons of molasses. The long-range purpose was
to ferment the molasses to produce ethanol, the active ingredient in most alcoholic
drinks. It was also a key component in
munitions.
On January 15, 1919, the
temperatures in Boston had risen above 40 degrees very rapidly from the frigid
temperatures that had covered mid-New England for the previous several weeks.
A ship had delivered a fresh load
of molasses the day before and that load had warmed been to reduce its thickness
for transfer. When that load was mixed with colder molasses already inside the
tank, the tank burst. The ground shook, there was a loud roar followed by a
long rumble similar to the passing of an elevated train and then a “tremendous
crashing, a deep growling” that sounded like a machine gun firing.
After the initial wave, the
molasses became sticky, trapping hundreds of people as they rushed to escape
the wave. It sent 150 people to the hospital, killed 21 more, and drowned a
large number of horses.
Cleanup crews used saltwater
from a fireboat to wash away the molasses and sand to absorb it and as a result,
Boston Harbor was brown with molasses until the following summer.