Tsunami by James Goff and Walter Dudley

Author:James Goff and Walter Dudley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2020-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Boston Molasses Flood of 1919

January 15, 1919, was a very mild day for Boston in mid-winter. During the previous 3 days, temperatures had risen from approximately 2oF to 43oF (–16oC to 6oC). In the area around Copps Hill were the freight sheds of the Boston and Worcester and Eastern Massachusetts Railways, and looming large over these was a huge 2.5-million-gallon (9.7-million-liter) tank containing molasses adjacent to the relatively new elevated railway—the “El.” The tank had been built 4 years earlier by the Purity Distilling Company but was now owned by the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. This was a massive construction comprising curved steel sides held together with rivets and huge bottom plates set into a concrete base. Although the origins of New England’s and hence Boston’s demand for molasses were born out of the old Colonial triangle trade of slaves from Africa to the West Indies, molasses from the West Indies to New England, and rum (made from the molasses) back across the Atlantic to purchase a cargo of slaves, this format was long gone by 1919. However, rum was still made in Boston—and incidentally baked beans as well—and the molasses needed for the task still came from the South.

The United States was about to enter one of its more interesting social experiments with Prohibition about to be ratified with a vote the next day. It is entirely conceivable that the Purity Distilling Company could read the writing on the wall and so by selling out in 1917 to the United States Industrial Alcohol Company it ensured that the huge molasses tank, 50 ft (15 m) tall and some 90 ft (27 m) in diameter, could continue to supply the raw ingredients for a legal alcohol trade—to industry. Indeed, business was good, and just a few days before, a ship from Puerto Rico had bulked up the contents of the tank to approximately 2.3 million gallons (8.7 million liters).

It was a glorious day for the middle of winter, and people were lounging around in their shirtsleeves. The general cheer of a nice warm day was bringing smiles to all around, and lunchtime was fast approaching.

At approximately 12:30 p.m., a low, deep rumble reverberated through the freight yard. The ground seemed to heave under people’s feet, and the giant molasses tank tore apart. It appeared to rise up and split, with the steel rivets popping like machine-gun fire, releasing a sticky brown geyser up into the sky under a pressure of 2 tons per square foot (191.52 kPa). This caused a tsunami of choking molasses, 15–25 ft (4–7 m) high, to flood the immediate neighborhood of downtown Boston. It generated a hissing, sucking sound as it splashed in a curving arc, crushing everything and everybody in its path. Men, women, children, and animals were caught, hurled into the air, or dashed against freight cars only to fall back and sink from sight in the slowly moving mass.

A steel section of the tank was hurled across the street, taking out one of the vertical supports for the El.

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