Many of us remember being told we were slower than molasses in January when we were dragging our feet and our parents wanted to go somewhere. It was up there to poetically describe terribly slow things like watched pots and paint drying and grass growing.
So it may come as a surprise that molasses in January actually travels at about 35 miles per hour and with enough force to knock houses off their foundations and trains off their tracks.
At least, one instance of molasses in January in Boston did.
One hundred years ago, around lunchtime on January 15th, 1919, a 50-foot-high steel tank  ruptured in Boston’s North End, spilling 2.3 million gallons of molasses. Now, while visions of tanks spilling sweet goodness all over may be the stuff of dreams, the reality is the stuff of nightmares. Twenty one people were killed and 150 people were injured. Litigation would last for years.
It had been an abnormally warm winter day. The molasses in the tank had probably been fermenting for months, as people had reported seeing leaks. The tank was painted brown to hide the leaks, but children of the heavily populated area would go to the tank with pails to collect the molasses. The tank had also just been topped off a few days before with warm molasses that had traveled from the Gulf Coast, and the warm day contributed to the fermentation. The rivets began to shoot out of the tank, making people report hearing machine gun fire, and the molasses began to twist and break off the steel plates as it escaped.
Patrolman Frank McManus used a call box to report a wave of molasses down Commercial Street. Â He asked for all available rescue vehicles and personnel to be sent. The molasses formed a 40 foot wave with its 14,000 tons. For nearly 100 yards around the tank, the spill was chest deep. It knocked the firehouse off its foundation and shook the elevated train nearly off its tracks.
Within seconds, people within two city blocks of the tank had been drowned. Many survivors had broken backs and skulls from the force. Giuseppe Iantosca was keeping an eye on his ten year old son through his second story window when the molasses hit. He watched his son’s red sweater vanish into the molasses. It would be hours before the boy’s broken body would be recovered. Eighteen of the 21 victims were Italian or Irish immigrants.
Molasses, as you may guess, doesn’t act like water. It’s a non-Newtonian fluid, which means it wants to remain stable and static until a force is applied. Then it can react pretty violently. Think toothpaste in a tube or ketchup in a squeeze bottle. Prior to being squeezed, they are pretty stable. The force of gravity and the heat made the molasses very unstable. After it stopped being affected by the force, the molasses simply went back to being stable, trapping people and animals in its sticky grip. And unlike water, regular motions won’t work. Every time you move in a non-Newtonian fluid, it moves with you, making sure you make no progress. It’s why we see insects trapped in amber, or prehistoric animals in tar pits. Only this was molasses just a century ago in one of the United States’ largest cities trapping people and dogs and horses.
People stuck in deep molasses would describe how difficult it was to breathe, how the pressure of the molasses on their chests forced them to gasp for their lives. Doctors and nurses would later document how hard it was to clean molasses out of the tracheas of survivors. And then the temperature began to drop, causing the molasses to become stable again, trapping people and animals and buildings. Twenty five horses ended up dying.
Sailors on leave rushed to the scene to help. Harry Howe, interviewed in 1981, recalled, “We saw this big cloud of brown dust and dirt and a slight noise. And there was an arm sticking out from underneath the wheel of a truck. So two of us got a hold of his arm and pulled and unfortunately, we pulled his arm off.”
Rescue efforts would continue for days. It would take weeks to clear the streets, and months for it to wash out of the harbor.
It was later concluded that the steel plates comprising the molasses tank were thinner than the original plans had called for. There were too few rivets to keep the weaker plates in place. It was calculated that that at the time of the explosion, the overfilled tank exerted a pressure of 31,000 pounds per square inch on the tank walls. The under built tank had no chance. A court would decide that the company that owned the tank was responsible for the damage and deaths, although they would maintain for years they were victims of an anarchist’s bomb.
All that remains to remind people of this tragedy is a small green plaque in Langone Park, which covers much of the area that had been flooded 100 years ago. People say you can still smell the molasses on hot days.
References:
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https://alum.mit.edu/slice/solving-great-molasses-flood-mystery
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/molasses-flood-physics-science/
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/great-boston-molasses-flood-1919-killed-21-after-2-million-n958326
https://www.wbur.org/news/2019/01/15/boston-molasses-flood-100-years-later
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/boston-molasses-flood-100-year-anniversary
