One hundred years ago today (January 15, 1919), the Great Molasses Flood devastated Boston’s North End. By midday, the temperature had soared to 40 degrees after having dropped to 2 degrees earlier in the week. Rivets of a 50-foot molasses storage tank, owned by U.S. Industrial Alcohol, began to shoot into the air, followed by a roaring sound as 2.3 million gallons of molasses, a dark tidal wave 25 feet high by 160 feet wide and weighing 26 million pounds, flooded the busy waterfront neighborhood at 35 mph (belying the expression “slow as molasses”), killing 21 people, aged 10 to 78. The explosion should not have come as a surprise. The previous summer, one of the hottest on record, nearby residents noticed drips running down the tank’s walls. The owners reacted by painting the outside rust-brown, the color of molasses, to hide the leaks. Despite trying to place the blame on anarchists, the company was held responsible and fined the equivalent of $15 million in today’s dollars. Researchers later concluded that among the tank’s many design flaws, the walls were too thin. The foreman in charge of the project had no technical training and couldn’t even read blueprints. In response to this disaster, the Boston Building Department thereafter required detailed calculations and expert review before approving building permits. Many other municipalities followed. Read about how other fatal industrial accidents in the early 1900s led to construction and occupational reforms in Tazia and Gemma (see NOVELS).
