January 15th 1919 was an unseasonably mild day, by lunchtime, Boston’s North End was full of people out enjoying the weather as well as lots of workers going about their business. At around 12.30 - 1.00pm a low rumble could be heard, many assumed it was a train or heavy vehicle, but a few minutes later the ground shook and the rumble turned into a roar.
Disaster struck when a massive 50 foot tank of industrial grade molasses burst, sending 2.3 million U.S gallons of thick, sticky liquid through the streets at terrifying speeds of 35 miles per hour killing 21 people and injuring 150 more. The wave was reported at being around 25 feet high at it’s peak.
When the flood happened, it had such speed and energy that it moved buildings from their foundations, knocked the elevated train tracks down, lifted trucks and vehicles, throwing them into walls and suffocated people and horses where they fell.
Heroic rescue efforts happened immediately, cadets from the ‘USS Nantucket’ which was docked nearby, nurses from the Red Cross and the Boston Police department hurried to the scene to be met by an unimaginable task. The viscous and sticky nature of the molasses made getting to victims incredibly difficult. As well as drowning in the liquid, people had been thrown long distances, crushed by falling buildings and had been injured by large pieces of debris which had flown through the air. Conditions grew worse as night fell and temperatures dropped which caused the often foot-deep molasses to thicken, trapping people further where many asphyxiated. It has been noted that if the tragedy had struck in the warmth of summer the death toll would likely be much lower due to the liquid being thinner and able to spread much further away from the site.
The clean-up operation was an incredibly difficult job. Molasses had coated everything in its path making the removal of debris and damage nearly impossible. Salt-water from a fire boat in the harbour was used to break down the sugar syrup and sand could help soak some of it up. As well as the site itself, molasses had been tracked further away by vehicles and people involved in the rescue effort and clean-up so a vast area of the city had to be attended to. It was said that all of Boston was sticky - roads and pavements, subway train seats, shops, hospitals, payphones and people’s homes. Boston’s North End was ‘brown for months’ and residents reported the sweet smell for years after.
The disaster happened at the Purity Distilling Company, 529 Commercial Street, where a huge amount of molasses was stored at the harbourside plant, unloaded from ships ready to be transferred to the Purity ethanol plant in Cambridge, Massachusetts and other distilleries. The molasses could be fermented to produce ethanol - a key ingredient in alcoholic drinks and munitions. It seems that several factors contributed to the tank rupture and the following disaster:
Firstly, the unseasonably warm weather. Temperatures has risen from well below freezing the night before, a fresh, large load of molasses had been delivered by ship the previous day which had been warmed to aid in transferring it, one theory is that the thermal expansion of the older, colder liquid already in the tank led to the tank bursting. Others speculated that the levels of fermentation inside the tank led to it failing.
It also seems the tank wasn’t fit for purpose from the day it was built. It was constructed quickly in 1915 to meet the increasing demand for industrial alcohol (distilled from molasses) to make dynamite and explosives for World War 1. Local residents knew it leaked, in fact local children would take cups and buckets to fill from the drips. When complaints were made, the Purity Distilling Company painted the tank brown to disguise the leaks. As well as questions about the integrity of the rivets used to hold the panels together, the steel body of the tank was not thick enough to safely hold that much volume and weight. A 2014 investigation found that the steel was half as thick as it should have been, and the chemical composition of the walls made them liable to cracking. Basic safety tests such as initially filling the tank with water to identify any leaks prior to use had not been done. U.S Industrial Alcohol who owned the tank was ultimately found liable.
In the aftermath, 119 people brought a class-action lawsuit against USIA who initially claimed the tank had been blown up by anarchists against the making of munitions, but this was disproven and the company’s responsibility was established after three years of investigation and hearings. The lawsuit is seen as a milestone in improving modern corporate regulations.
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