The Great Molasses Flood, also known as the Boston Molasses Disaster or Great Boston Molasses Flood, occurred on January 15, 1919 in the North End of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood. A large molasses storage tank exploded and the molasses waves rushed through the streets around 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The show entered local folklore and for decades after that the population claimed that in those days summer area still smells molasses.
Video Great Molasses Flood
Flood
The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility on January 15, 1919. Temperature had risen above 40 Â ° F (4 Â ° C), rising rapidly from cold temperatures in previous days.
Molasses can be fermented to produce rum and ethanol, the active ingredient in other alcoholic beverages and key components in the manufacture of ammunition. The stored molasses awaiting transfer to the Purity factory located between Willow Street and what is now the Evereteze Way, in Cambridge.
Around 12:30 pm near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, a 50 ft (15 m) high molassic tank, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter, and contains as many as 2.300,000 gallons (8,700 m 3 ), collapsed. Witnesses in various ways report that when they collapse, they feel the ground swaying and hearing a roar, a long rumbling sound akin to the passing of a flyover (by chance, with such a close line), a tremendous collision, a deep growl, or "like like lightning! "[emphasis added], and when the spikes are fired out of the tank, sounds like machine guns.
The collapse releases a molecular waves of 25Ã, ft (8 m) high at its peak, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h). The molasses waves are sufficient forces to damage the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway Road structures and the tip of a train car briefly out of the rail. Author Stephen Puleo explains how nearby buildings are swept from their foundations and destroyed. Some blocks are flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm). Puleo cites the report Boston Post :
Molasses, waist-deep, covered the road and spinning and bubbling about the debris of Ã, ... Here and there struggling form? -? Whether it's animals or humans is impossible to say. Just upheaval, thrashing in sticky mass, showing where every life ... Horses die like so many flies on flies paper. The more they struggle, the deeper they get tangled up. Human? -? Man and woman? -? Suffered too.
The Boston Globe reported that people were "picked up by the airflow and threw many legs." Others have debris thrown at them from the fragrant air stream. A truck picked up and thrown into Boston Harbor. About 150 people were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed. Some are destroyed and drowned by molasses. The injured included people, horses, and dogs; cough fits into one of the most common diseases after the initial explosion. In a 1983 article for Smithsonian , Edwards Park wrote about a one-child experience:
Anthony in Stasio, walking home with his sisters from Michelangelo School, was picked up by the waves and taken, crashed at the top, almost like surfing. Then he was grounded and drops of sugarcane rolled him like a pebble when the waves were reduced. He heard his mother calling his name and could not answer, his throat so clogged with a stifling goo. He fainted, then opened his eyes to find three of his four sisters staring at him.
Maps Great Molasses Flood
Aftermath
First to the scene was 116 cadets under the direction of Commandant Lieutenant Commander HJ Copeland of the USS Nantucket , the training ship of the Massachusetts Nautical School (now the Massachusetts Maritime Academy), which anchored nearby on the play dock. They ran a few blocks to the accident. They work to keep curiosity from blocking rescuers, while others go into sticky and sticky sidelines to attract survivors. Soon, the Boston Police, the Red Cross, the Army, and other Navy personnel arrived. Some nurses from the Red Cross go into molasses, while others tend to be wounded, keep them warm and keep the weary workers fed. Many of these people work all night. The wounded so much that doctors and surgeons set up an emergency hospital in a nearby building. Rescue teams find it difficult to get through the syrup to help the victims. Four days passed before they stopped looking for victims; many of the dead are smeared with molasses, they are hard to recognize.
Locals carry a class action lawsuit, one of the first held in Massachusetts, against the US Industrial Alcohol Company (AGE), which had purchased Purity Distilling in 1917. Despite the company's efforts to claim that the tank had been blown up. by anarchists (because some alcohol produced is used to make ammunition), the court-appointed auditor finds the AGES responsible after three years of trials. The US Alcohol Industry Company eventually paid $ 600,000 out of court ($ 6.5 million in 2017, adjusted for inflation). Their dead relatives reportedly received about $ 7,000 per victim.
Cleanup
The cleaning crews use salt water from firefighters to wash the molasses, and use the sand to try to absorb them. The harbor is brown with molasses until summer. Cleaning in nearby areas requires "weeks", with over 300 people contributing to this effort. Cleaning throughout Greater Boston and the surrounding area will take a very long time. Rescue workers, cleaning crews, and observers have been tracking molasses through the streets and passing them onto subway platforms, to seats in trains and trams, to pay for calls, to homes, and to many other places. "All that Bostonian touched was sticky."
Fatalities
Source:
Cause
Some of the factors that occurred on that day and in the preceding days may have caused disasters. The tank is poorly constructed and tested insufficient. Due to the fermentation occurring inside the tank, the production of carbon dioxide may have increased internal pressure. The local temperature rise that occurred on the previous day will also help in building this pressure. Records show that air temperatures rise from 2 to 41 Â ° F (-17 to 5.0 Â ° C) during the period. Failure occurs from the hole cover near the base of the tank, and the fatigue crack there may grow to the point of criticality. The largest circular stress near the base of the filled cylinder tank.
The tank has been filled up to capacity only eight times since it was built several years earlier, placing the wall under a cyclic, intermittent load. Some authors say that the Purity Distilling Company (or perhaps) tries to avoid a ban in the United States; The Eighteenth Amendment The US Constitution was ratified the following day (January 16, 1919), and took effect one year later.
A post-disaster investigation revealed that Arthur Jell, who oversaw the construction, ignored basic safety tests, such as filling the tank with water to check for leaks. When filled with molasses, the leaking tank is so bad that it is painted brown to hide the leak. Locals collect leaky molasses for their homes.
The investigation was first published in 2014, applying modern engineering analysis, finding that the steel was not only half as thick as it should have for its size tank, even with a loose standard that day, but also had no manganese, and made more fragile as a result.
In 2016, a team of scientists and students at Harvard University conducted an extensive study of historical disasters, collecting data from various sources, including 1919 newspaper articles, old maps, and weather reports. Student researchers also studied the behavior of cold corn syrup that flooded the scale model of the affected environment. The researchers concluded that reports of high flood velocities were reliable.
Two days before the disaster, warm molasses have been added to the tank, reducing the viscosity of the liquid. When the tank collapses the liquid cools rapidly as it spreads, until it reaches the winter night's temperatures in Boston and its viscosity increases dramatically. Harvard's research concluded that the molasses cooled and thickened rapidly as the moles in the streets, hampering efforts to free the victims before they suffocated. The study results were presented at the November 2016 meeting of the American Physical Society.
Area of ​​the day
Industry United States Alcohol does not rebuild the tank. The property formerly occupied by molasses tanks and North End Paving Company became the page for the Boston Elevated Railway (the predecessor of the Bay Massachusetts Transport Authority). Currently it is a city-owned recreation complex site, named Langone Park, featuring a small League Baseball field, a playground, and a bocce court. Immediately to the east is the larger Puopolo Park, with additional recreational facilities.
A small plaque at the park entrance of Puopolo, which was placed by the Boston Society, commemorated the disaster. Plaque, entitled "Boston Molasses Flood", reads:
On January 15, 1919, a molasses tank on 529 Commercial Street exploded under pressure, killing 21 people. A 40-foot-high molasses waves arc an elevated railway line, destroying buildings and flooding the environment. The structural defects in the tank combined with the seasonally uncomfortable warm temperatures contribute to the disaster.
Cultural influence
Many laws and regulations governing the construction were changed as a direct result of the disaster, including the requirements for oversight by licensed architects and civil engineers.
One of the DUCW amphibious tour vehicles operated by Boston Duck Tours, painted correctly in dark chocolate, has been named Molly Molasses as a memorial to the event, in accordance with company practices in naming their DUKW after famous Boston locations, events and other parts of the culture local.
The folk band Maine Schooner Fare refers to the disasters in their song "Molasses", from their 1985 album We The People . The lyrics mistook the death toll, putting it on 26 instead of 21.
See also
- Honolulu molasses spill (September 2013)
- Beer Flood London
References
- Puleo, Stephen (2004). Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 . Boston: Beacon Press. ISBNÃ, 0-8070-5021-0.
External links
- Boston Public Library. Photos associated with the event on Flickr. Many phrases are direct quotes.
- The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919, a four-minute audio story at The American Storyteller Radio Journal
- An interview with Stephen Puleo, author of a book listed in the References section above
- Flood Molasses of 1919
- "The scene on Molasses-Boston Street Flood", from Washington Times , January 18, 1919
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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