The molasses disaster also improved the government’s oversight of corporations. The trial set a precedent for expert witnesses, as engineers, metallurgists and architects testified. The lawsuit resulted in Purity paying $628,000 in damages, including $7,000 each to the families of victims. Photo courtesy Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection. Neighborhood children brought pails to the tank and filled them with leaking molasses.Ĭutting the tank with acetylene torch 3 days after the molasses flood. So the company painted it brown to hide the leaks. Purity claimed anarchists blew up the tank, but investigators found it was poorly constructed and never tested for safety. In the aftermath, local residents filed a class-action suit against the company, Purity Distilling Company. Buildings seemed to crinkle as though made of pasteboard. The Globe then reported no one had a chance to escape once they hear the low, rumbling sound. The workmen were at their noontime meal, some eating in the building or just outside, and many of the men in the Department of Public Works Buildings and stables, which are close by, and where many were injured badly, were away at lunch. The explosion came without the slightest warning. The Boston Evening Globe reported the boiling sludge buried scores of people inside ruined buildings, killing some and badly injuring others.įragments of the great tank were thrown into the air, buildings in the neighborhood began to crumple up as though the underpinnings had been pulled away from under them… Section of tank after molasses disaster explosion. The harbor didn’t lose its brown tinge until summer. The molasses even made its way into private homes, and some said it got tracked as far as Worcester. For months it seemed that anything a Bostonian touched was sticky: pay phones, T seats, sidewalks and subway platforms. Hundreds of people helped the cleanup effort, and they tracked molasses all over the city. Months later, casualties of the molasses disaster washed up from Boston Harbor. Rescuers spent the next four days searching for victims. Doctors and nurses set up a makeshift hospital in a nearby building. ![]() Then the Boston police, US Army soldiers and Red Cross personnel arrived and tried to make their way through the syrup to help those caught in it. Over a hundred cadets from the training ship USS Nantucket, docked nearby, ran to the scene to rescue victims and keep onlookers away from danger. The more they struggled, the more the molasses ensnared them. People couldn’t tell the difference between men, women, children or horses. The molasses was waist deep in the streets, and covered struggling forms trying to escape the sticky mass. Wreckage under the elevated where many express trucks parked before the molasses flood. While outside, the wall of goo trapped some unlucky victims, hurled some into the air, flung some against freight cars and smothered still others. Inside the Boston and Worcester freight terminal, the river of molasses poured through the doors and windows. He passed out, then opened his eyes to find three of his four sisters staring at him. He heard his mother call his name and couldn’t answer, his throat was so clogged with the smothering goo. Then he grounded and the molasses rolled him like a pebble as the wave diminished. According to a 1983 article in Smithsonian,Īnthony di Stasio, walking homeward with his sisters from the Michelangelo School, was picked up by the wave and carried, tumbling on its crest, almost as though he were surfing. ![]() The molasses surge picked up a truck and threw it into Boston Harbor.Ī small boy named Anthony di Stasio got caught in the molasses flood. It then tipped over a rail car and knocked buildings off their foundations. The deadly ooze damaged the Boston Elevated Railway on Atlantic Avenue. The ground shook, and witnesses said the rivets popping out of the tank sounded like machine gun fire. ![]() Shortly after noon, the tank collapsed with a thunderous roar. The tank, though only a few years old, seemed shaky. People who lived and worked in the North End said the tank shuddered and groaned when the company filled it. ![]() The tank, 50 feet high and 90 feet in diameter, contained 2.3 million gallons of molasses originally destined for use in a munitions plant. The Boston elevated twisted into new shapes after the molasses flood.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |