Posted on 01/19/2011 6:29:25 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Yesterday was the 92nd anniversary of one of the strangest tragedies ever to take place on American soil. It's the stuff of Weekly World News or The Onion. Yet it was a very real, deadly, (and delicious) disaster. To this day on hot summer days in an old Boston neighborhood, residents swear that they can smell a vague odor of molasses. It's a sweet-smelling reminder of a day when some 150 people were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed by a sudden flood of molasses...
Purity Distilling Company was doing big business. A large quantity of stored molasses was awaiting transfer to the Purity plant. The stored molasses was near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, in a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L).
As you probably already guess, the tank collapsed. Witnesses claim that there was a loud rumbling sound, like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank; and say that the ground shook as if a train were passing by. The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 and 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h)...
The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm).
(Excerpt) Read more at datelinezero.com ...
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Hugh sheets of steel????
omg, this is series!
I thought only one horse drowned.
The Molasses Flood, the Halifax Explosion and the Galveston Hurricane are three disasters that most folks are unfamiliar with.
I’ve always been fascinated by this bizarre event. On another note my jaw dropped when I saw the word “hugh” lol.
LOL ping
Add to that, The Bath School Bombing and Port Chicago, CA Disaster
The reason it exploded was they filled the tank to the max due to Prohibition coming into law during a cold spell - then the usual January thaw happen and the rest is history.
Another use for the molasses was to distill alcohol from it to make munitions.
Read the “Dark Tide”.
I will never forget the day I was walking down Commercial Street when I heard a loud rumble.
Here's another.
Comparatively, being smothered to death by molasses sounds like fun.
One claim is that the coming Volstead Act "inspired" sabotage
(yeah, yeah, "no sabotage found"), allowing the company to
collect on the insurance.
Another claim is that on hot sultry days, you can still smell the
molasses. Between nor'easters, storms, and hurricanes, I do
find that hard to believe.
As for Halifax, they send a tree to Boston every Christmas as a
"thank you" for the aid train sent immediately after the French
ship blew up in the harbor. A Montreal aid train derailed.
There's a "recent" dramatized movie on it. "Agent Scully" plays
a woman pulled from the rubble. (Yes, I read the credits)
The British officer whose waiving of the commonsense rules that
contributed to the disaster was reassigned to Boston. The
French captain that abandoned his burning ship that "drifted"
deeper into the harbor before it exploded, got medals for
services (after Halifax) during the rest of WWI.
The Galveston disaster happened in the early days of understanding
the power of hurricanes. Not that it stops people from living
in hurricane-prone areas today. There's documentary on what
Galveston did to raise the level of the island and add seawalls
after the hurricane. The environazis would be dropping dead
of apoplexia if it were done today. By all rights, Galveston
should have been renamed Fishkill.
The strangest piece of truth I’ve ever heard. Death by chocolate has nothing on death by molasses.
What a sweet way to die! sorry- i just had to say it.
A group out of Portland, Maine, Schoonerfare had a great song about the “Flood”. Anyone have a free link so I can listen?
Port Chicago explosion was of interest to me. I loaded bombs for Viet Nam there and knew the basic story pretty well. I didn’t know all the details the attached Wikipedia article had though.
The competition to get ships loaded swiftly was not present when I was there but strict safety. The safety part served me well on one voyage where we off loaded a partial load in Korea before heading to Viet Nam. The Korean army practiced unloading the ship at night, trying to set records with regular troops while training them in cargo off loading. They tried breaking most of the safety rules to go faster.
I had a serious face off with the Korean lieutenant.
The 1947 Texas City explosion is noteworthy also.
http://www.local1259iaff.org/texascitydisasterpics.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_City_Disaster
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