![]() ![]() “That’s how a lot of these injuries happened-fractured skulls, broken pelvises, broken backs. “It picks up everything in its path-carts, animals, wood, houses, debris from an overhead train trestle,” he says. “The theory was an anarchist climbed a ladder and dropped a pipe bomb into a fermentation vent, and that’s what caused the tank to explode, so therefore should be absolved of responsibility because it was a terrorist act,” Puleo says.īoston Herald news clip via Boston Public Library The molasses was full of deadly junk claimed in court that the flood was actually the work of an anarchist terrorist cell. But the company that owned the tank, U.S. We now know in great detail how a shoddily built tank caused the disaster, as more than 2 million gallons of goo burst through its rickety steel shell and wreaked havoc on the streets of the North End. ![]() The molasses company tried to blame the incident on terrorists We asked him to walk us through some of the most notable bits from the tragedy that you should absolutely know. The 100th anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses flood is upon us, but many still fail to grasp the significance of the event, if they’ve heard of it at all. Stephen Puleo, author of the definitive book on the subject, Dark Tide, has spent the last decade-and-a-half telling the story how a massive wave of dark syrup changed the course of history, redefined a neighborhood, and was more gruesome than you probably realized. All rights reserved.Headshot and book cover courtesy of Beacon Press Mapping the physics of the molasses flood could help experts better understand other catastrophes such as industrial spills or ruptured levees, Sharp said.īut mostly, she and the others hope it will pique students' interest in physics. Once the tank split and the molasses gushed across the Boston waterfront, it cooled rapidly, "complicating attempts to rescue victims," the team said in its report. Two days before the disaster, the tank had been topped off with a fresh shipment of molasses from the balmy Caribbean that hadn't yet cooled to Boston winter temperatures. The team found that molasses thickens dramatically when exposed to cold, and that at the time of the collapse, the stuff in the storage tank likely was considerably warmer than the wintry air outside. Harvard graduate student Jordan Kennedy analyzed the properties of blackstrap molasses and how it flows at different temperatures. ![]() Researchers also studied century-old maps and archived National Weather Service meteorological data. Sharp's team combed through hundreds of pages of historical accounts. It reduced buildings to rubble and damaged an elevated train. It took only moments for the molasses to engulf the area around Commercial Street, a bustling artery. Outrunning it was out of the question: Sharp says the sticky tsunami raced through the cobblestone streets at 35 miles per hour, propelled by the sheer weight of the goop. 15, 1919, shortly after 12:40 p.m., the massive tank in Boston's crowded North End buckled and gave way, releasing more than 2.3 million gallons of molasses in a towering wave that historical accounts indicate was initially 25 feet tall-nearly as high as a football goalpost. "Oddly enough, that's exactly what we're dealing with here, except that this molasses wasn't slow." "I'm originally from Arkansas, where we have an old expression: 'Slow as molasses in January,'" she said. Team leader Nicole Sharp said she hopes the findings-presented last week at a conference of the American Physical Society-will shed new light "on the physics of a fascinating and surreal historical event." Now Harvard University researchers think they know why the wave of sticky stuff claimed so many lives: A winter chill rapidly cooled the molasses as it streamed through the streets, complicating rescuers' frantic efforts to free victims.Ī team of experts who studied the disaster to gain a better understanding of fluid dynamics concluded that cold temperatures quickly thickened the syrupy mess, which might have claimed few if any lives had it occurred in spring, summer or fall. ![]()
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