1/8/2024 0 Comments Great molasses flood![]() ĭuring the lawsuit, there were three ideas about why the flood happened: 1) Yeast or other very small living things in the tank ate the molasses and gave off carbon dioxide gas, which made the tank explode, 2) someone put a bomb in the tank, or 3) the tank was not built well. Russell, and Harvard University's George F. This was the first lawsuit in United States History that had many expert witnesses: Engineers, architects, and other building experts talked about the tank in court, for example metal scientist Albert Colby, Massachusetts Institute of Technology engineer George E. ![]() The lawsuit took six years and there were more than 3000 people who spoke in court. Soon after the flood, 199 people sued U.S. People say they can still smell molasses on hot days. The water in the harbor was brown for months. The people used hoses from fireboats to wash the molasses into Boston Harbor with seawater. Many of the train car seats and public telephones were sticky. Soon every street in Boston had molasses on it. When they went to other parts of Boston, the molasses fell off. People who went to the North End got molasses on their clothes and shoes. Because of the molasses, it was hard for people to tell which people they were. Some of the dead people were not found until days later. On the left, there is a story about states voting to make alcohol illegal.Ģ1 people and many horses died. The Boston Globe wrote about the flood before all the bodies were found. The molasses was so hard that they pulled his arm off by accident. Some rescuers tried to get a man out of the molasses by pulling on his arm. Rescue workers came to the North End, but they could not walk or drive carts through the molasses. ![]() Because he was already sending a message to other police officers, he called for help right away. A police officer was in a signal box talking to his police group when the tank broke. Soon, there was 2-3 feet (up to 1 meter) of molasses on the ground. The molasses spread out to other streets. When it covered people's noses and mouths, they could not breathe. So people and other animals fell into warm, soft molasses that got hard around them, and they could not get out. But it cooled down quickly in the cold winter air. When the tank first broke, some of the molasses was still hot, so it moved fast at first. īecause the molasses was sticky, people in it could not get out. One piece flew into one of the pillars holding up an elevated train track and broke it. Pieces of the tank flew into houses and broke holes in walls. The wave of molasses was 30 feet (9 meters) high and moved at 35 miles per hour (55 kph). 2.3 million gallons (8.7 million liters) of molasses spilled out onto Commercial Street. The train stopped just in time.Īt about 12:30 p.m. Event Ī piece of the tank broke some elevated train tracks. Įngineer Ronald Mayville says the tank broke because the steel was not thick enough. On January 13, two days before the flood, even more hot molasses was poured into the tank. Industrial Alcohol painted the tank brown so the children could not find the leaks to steal molasses, but they did not fix the leaks. Families would send children to go and take molasses from the leak. The tank was not very old, but it leaked. The people in the North End said it made strange noises. Industrial Alcohol, put their molasses in a 50-foot (15-meter) steel tank at 529 Commercial Street in Boston's North End neighborhood. This was right before alcohol would become illegal in the United States, so people wanted to make and sell rum while they still could. But the molasses had to be stored until rum makers were ready. In Boston, people made rum out of molasses in factories called distilleries. Ships brought molasses to Boston from the sugar farms in the Caribbean Sea. Industrial Alcohol put their molasses in this round metal tank.
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