10/3/2023 0 Comments Boston molasses flood conversw![]() The tragedy of Boston's molasses flood led to great changes in the way the United States regulated industries. In 1925, a court-appointed auditor ruled that the negligence by the tank's owners was to blame for the tank's collapse and the loss of life and property. An initial inquiry and a later class-action lawsuit revealed the structural instability of the tank. Though locals had observed the structural issues with the molasses tank, the tank's owners initially blamed an anarchist plot to bomb the tank. The below photos of the cleanup process show the extent of the destruction and the difficulties encountered of cleaning the area. The Engine 31 fireboat, who's firehouse had been destroyed in the flood, was key in the cleanup efforts. City workers finally realized that saltwater broke down the molasses and began spraying the area with water pumped in from the harbor. Molasses coated the wreckage making it almost impossible to move fragments of building and vehicles. You can read about each of the victims in this article.Ĭleaning up the molasses and debris in the North End was a difficult process. However, the deceased also included Pasquale Iantosca and Maria Distasio, two 10-year-olds who had been out enjoying the unseasonably warm day, and George Layhe, an Engine 31 fireman who had reportedly just gone to bed before the molasses hit his firehouse. Most of the deceased were laborers and drivers working at the North End Paving Yard and Copps Hill Wharf. Despite heroic efforts, the molasses killed 21 people and injured 150. Rescuers, including the Boston Police Department, cadets from the USS Nantucket, docked nearby, and the Red Cross, rushed to the scene. The crumpled pieces of the tank littering the debris field showed the force of the molasses wave. It knocked an Elevated train off of its tracks, crushed buildings, moved a firehouse and other buildings off their foundations, and suffocated both humans and animals. The wave of molasses rushed through the North End at about 35 miles per hour. On January 15, 1919, a combination of the tank's shoddy construction, a sudden temperature change, and a large new shipment of molasses resulted in a rupture of the tank's walls. Furthermore, the chemical composition of the tank's walls made them vulnerable to cracking. Structural engineers later reported that the tank's walls were far too thin to hold the heavy molasses that the tank stored. When locals complained that they could see the molasses seeping out at the tank's seams, Purity Distilling painted the tank brown, to disguise the oozing molasses. According to author Stephen Puleo, North End children collected pails of the sticky, sweet molasses. Such a mix of significantly differing temperatures produced gas and added to the air pressure within the tank, which hadn’t been able to take it.Though the tank had only been built a few years earlier in 1915, local residents knew that it leaked. Additionally, a recent delivery of warm molasses was mixing with the cooler molasses that had been inside the tank for weeks. 15, the temperature had climbed to about 40°, increasing pressure within the tank. Two days before the explosion, the temperature was a mere 2° F. ![]() However, the ensuing court case, which lasted more than five years, decided that no act of sabotage had taken place and that structural failure was the cause of the explosion. Moreover, anarchists had bombed USIA facilities in New York several years before, and one employee reported having received a bomb threat against the tank in Boston. ![]() In fact, the Boston area had experienced 40 explosive incidents in the year leading up to the Molasses Flood. In theory, the claim was plausible, as anarchists and their dynamiting tactics were common during that time. Industrial Alcohol (USIA) corporation, which owned the Purity Distilling Company that operated the molasses tank, claimed that the explosion was not the result of substandard construction but was instead an act of sabotage perpetrated by anarchists.
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