Great Molasses Flood

Molasses can be fermented to produce ethanol, the active ingredient in alcoholic beverages and a key component in munitions. Possibly due to the thermal expansion of the older, colder molasses already inside the tank, the tank burst open and collapsed at approximately 12:30p.m. Witnesses reported that they felt the ground shake and heard a roar as it collapsed, a long rumble similar to the passing of an elevated train; others reported a tremendous crashing, a deep growling, "a thunderclap-like ", and a sound like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank. and tip a streetcar momentarily off of the railway's tracks. Stephen Puleo describes how nearby buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of . Puleo quotes a report from The Boston Post: As molasses is a non-Newtonian fluid, its viscosity changes under stress, thinning and flowing quickly under pressure and heat. During the flood, this shear-thinning resulted in unexpected speed. A 2013 article in Scientific American stated: "A wave of molasses does not behave like a wave of water. [...] A wave of molasses is even more devastating than a typical tsunami. In 1919 the dense wall of syrup surging from its collapsed tank initially moved fast enough to sweep people up and demolish buildings, only to settle into a more gelatinous state that kept people trapped." The wounded included people, horses, and dogs; coughing fits became one of the most common ailments after the initial blast. Edwards Park wrote of one child's experience in a 1983 article for Smithsonian: == Aftermath ==

First to the scene were 116 cadets under the direction of Lieutenant Commander H. J. Copeland from , a training ship of the Massachusetts Nautical School (now the Massachusetts Maritime Academy) that was docked nearby at the playground pier. which had bought Purity Distilling in 1917. It was one of the first class-action suits in Massachusetts and is considered a milestone in the development of modern corporate regulation. The company claimed that the tank had been blown up by anarchists because some of the alcohol produced was to be used in making munitions, but a court-appointed auditor found USIA responsible after three years of hearings, and the company ultimately paid out $628,000 in damages ($ in , adjusted for inflation). Relatives of those killed reportedly received around $7,000 per victim (equivalent to $ in ). Cleanup Cleanup crews used salt water from a fireboat to wash away the molasses and sand to absorb it, and the harbor was brown with molasses until summer. The cleanup in the immediate area took weeks, with several hundred people contributing to the effort, and it took longer to clean the rest of Greater Boston and its suburbs. Rescue workers, cleanup crews, and sight-seers had tracked molasses through the streets and spread it to subway platforms, to the seats inside trains and streetcars, to pay telephone handsets, into homes, and to countless other places. It was reported that "Everything that a Bostonian touched was sticky." Fatalities == Causes ==

Several factors might have contributed to the disaster. The first factor is that the tank may have leaked from the very first day that it was filled in 1915. The tank was also constructed poorly and tested insufficiently, and carbon dioxide production might have raised the internal pressure due to fermentation in the tank. Warmer weather the previous day would have assisted in building this pressure, as the air temperature rose from over that period. The failure occurred from a manhole cover near the base of the tank, and a fatigue crack there possibly grew to the point of criticality. The tank had been filled to capacity only eight times since it was built a few years previously, putting the walls under an intermittent, cyclical load. Several authors say that the Purity Distilling Company was trying to out-race Prohibition, Another issue was that the steel lacked manganese, and was more brittle as a result. The student researchers also studied the behavior of cold corn syrup flooding a scale model of the affected neighborhood. The researchers concluded that the reports of the high speed of the flood were credible. The Harvard study concluded that the molasses cooled and thickened quickly as it rushed through the streets, hampering efforts to free victims before they suffocated. == Area today ==

USIA did not rebuild the tank. The property formerly occupied by the molasses tank and the North End Paving Company became a yard for the Boston Elevated Railway (predecessor to the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority). It is now the site of a city-owned recreational complex, officially named Langone Park, featuring a Little League Baseball field, a playground, and bocce courts. The concrete slab base for the tank remains in place approximately below the surface of the baseball diamond at Langone Park. Attendees of the ceremony stood in a circle marking the edge of the tank. The 21 names of those who died in, or as a result of, the flood were read aloud. Many laws and regulations governing construction were changed as a direct result of the disaster, including requirements for oversight by a licensed architect and civil engineer. == In popular culture ==

• The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets' song "Great Molasses Disaster" is about the flood, and their official music video includes many pictures of the aftermath. • Canadian metal band Protest the Hero's song "All Hands" from the album Palimpsest is written from the perspective of a victim of the flood. The piano interlude to the song is titled "Harborside", a reference to the harborside tanks in which the molasses was stored. The last lines of the song references the first hand accounts of the aftermath. • The I Survived children's book series by Lauren Tarshis includes I Survived The Great Molasses Flood, 1919, a story written from the perspective of a 12 year-old girl in Boston. • Bostonian comedian and actress Ayo Edebiri, on Late Night with Seth Meyers, passionately spoke about the Great Molasses Flood where she mentions that she was "reduced to tears" talking about the tragedy, where people outside of Boston are far less aware of the event. • In 2025, a designer card game about the event was announced—"Molassacre: Escape the Flood" was based on the mid-20th century game Mille Bornes. == See also ==