http://blogs.umb.edu/fiskecenter/2019/01...d-of-1919/
https://www.boston.com/news/history/2019...flood-1919
https://www.boston.com/news/history/2019...sses-flood
https://www.history.com/news/the-great-m...od-of-1919
EXCERPT: The torrent came without warning — and within minutes it was gone. But in those moments, just past noon on Jan. 15, 1919 when a storage tank containing 2.5 million gallons of molasses ruptured in Boston’s North End, it unleashed unimaginable devastation from which there was no escape. In what would become known as the “Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919,” the explosion of the massive container sent a “tidal wave of death and destruction stalking through North End Park and Commercial st.,” The Boston Globe reported at the time.
The viscous flood was propelled by its sheer weight, traveling as quickly as 35 mph and forming a wave that estimated in different accounts to be between 15 and 50 feet high. The sea of molasses demolished six buildings in its path and knocked down a support for the nearby elevated rail line. People, horses, trucks, and homes were swept away. Twenty-one people were killed and about 150 injured. Six of them were city workers who were eating their lunch when they were engulfed.
“Investigators said they never had a chance to escape so suddenly did disaster strike,” the Globe reported. The Boston Post reported the day after the disaster that many of its victims suffocated, were smothered in the molasses that enveloped the area, or were crushed by the wreckage it caused:
There was no escape from the wave. Caught, human being and animal alike could not flee. Running in it was impossible. Snared in its flood was to be stifled. Once it smeared a head–human or animal–there was no coughing off the sticky mass. To attempt to wipe it with hands was to make it worse. Most of those who died, died from suffocation. It plugged nostrils almost air-tight.
Survivors recalled only a slight rumble before the onslaught, which past itself in five minutes or less. The recovery would go on much longer — with some bodies not being found for weeks or months.
[...] H.P. Palmer, an accountant at the electric freight plant, told the newspaper he heard the low rumble around 12:30 p.m. “He looked out of the window, felt the building which he was in rocking, and at a glance saw that something dreadful had happened,” the Globe reported. “Within a minute huge streams of molasses began to run through the various streets and passageways, filing every section for two blocks.”
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https://www.boston.com/news/history/2019...flood-1919
https://www.boston.com/news/history/2019...sses-flood
https://www.history.com/news/the-great-m...od-of-1919
EXCERPT: The torrent came without warning — and within minutes it was gone. But in those moments, just past noon on Jan. 15, 1919 when a storage tank containing 2.5 million gallons of molasses ruptured in Boston’s North End, it unleashed unimaginable devastation from which there was no escape. In what would become known as the “Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919,” the explosion of the massive container sent a “tidal wave of death and destruction stalking through North End Park and Commercial st.,” The Boston Globe reported at the time.
The viscous flood was propelled by its sheer weight, traveling as quickly as 35 mph and forming a wave that estimated in different accounts to be between 15 and 50 feet high. The sea of molasses demolished six buildings in its path and knocked down a support for the nearby elevated rail line. People, horses, trucks, and homes were swept away. Twenty-one people were killed and about 150 injured. Six of them were city workers who were eating their lunch when they were engulfed.
“Investigators said they never had a chance to escape so suddenly did disaster strike,” the Globe reported. The Boston Post reported the day after the disaster that many of its victims suffocated, were smothered in the molasses that enveloped the area, or were crushed by the wreckage it caused:
There was no escape from the wave. Caught, human being and animal alike could not flee. Running in it was impossible. Snared in its flood was to be stifled. Once it smeared a head–human or animal–there was no coughing off the sticky mass. To attempt to wipe it with hands was to make it worse. Most of those who died, died from suffocation. It plugged nostrils almost air-tight.
Survivors recalled only a slight rumble before the onslaught, which past itself in five minutes or less. The recovery would go on much longer — with some bodies not being found for weeks or months.
[...] H.P. Palmer, an accountant at the electric freight plant, told the newspaper he heard the low rumble around 12:30 p.m. “He looked out of the window, felt the building which he was in rocking, and at a glance saw that something dreadful had happened,” the Globe reported. “Within a minute huge streams of molasses began to run through the various streets and passageways, filing every section for two blocks.”
~