Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo

Author:Stephen Puleo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Floods - Massachusetts - Boston - History - 20th century, 20th Century, Molasses industry - Accidents - Massachusetts - Boston - History - 20th century, NH, VT), New England, Molasses industry, New England (CT, RI, State & Local, Alcohol industry - Accidents - Massachusetts - Boston - History - 20th century, Floods, United States, Industrial Health & Safety, Boston (Mass.), Alcohol industry, Industrial accidents, History, ME, Technology & Engineering, Boston (Mass.) - History - 1865, MA, Modern, General, Industrial accidents - Massachusetts - Boston - History - 20th century
ISBN: 9780807050217
Publisher: Beacon Press
Published: 2004-08-26T04:56:44.806305+00:00

Meanwhile, the cause of the disaster continued to be a source of debate carried out in the press. State chemist Walter Wedger, and U.S. inspector of explosives Daniel T. O’Connell, believed strongly in the “collapse theory”—that the tank disintegrated because of a combination of structural weakness and fermentation inside the tank. USIA attorney Henry F.R. Dolan continued to argue “beyond question” that outside influences, “evilly disposed persons,” were responsible for destroying the tank, insisting that the fifty-foot receptacle was structurally sound.

As the clean-up continued—as workers first tried to remove hardening molasses with chisels and saws, and finally used millions of gallons of briny seawater to cut the congealing liquid; as the injured were ministered at the relief station and the search continued for additional victims amidst the debris on the waterfront—Boston newspapers, and even the New York Times, continued to carry reports of the disaster on their front pages. They listed the names, ages, and occupations of the dead and the injured. They ran sidebars of people who escaped the wave by ducking under railroad cars. They published small stories explaining that people who were feared lost were actually alive and well.

For a week after the flood, the molasses tragedy became the only news in Boston, the talk of the city, the focus of activity in the North End.

Meanwhile, rescue teams kept searching for bodies.

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