#Boston molasses flood modern full
#Boston molasses flood modern crack

The blue circle next to Commercial Street is the molasses tank that had been constructed in late 1915.įor better context, here’s the same map with a puddle of molasses on it.īy the 1922 edition of the map, the tank of course was gone, along with some of the neighboring buildings.Īt one time I had imagined a tsunami of molasses racing through the narrow North End streets, sweeping away crowds and houses in its path. ( See him speak at the Boston Public Library tonight!)īut we can point you to maps, and tell tales of geography!Ī contemporary map of the area is from the Atlas of the City of Boston 1917 edition.

Start with Wikipedia and end with Stephen Puleo’s book Dark Tide, which tells the whole tale in vivid, personal detail. It’s not a story we need to tell here it’s been thoroughly told by others over the years. On Janua huge tank of molasses on the North End waterfront collapsed, releasing a viscous deluge that killed 21 people, injured a further 150, and damaged and destroyed structures.

#Boston molasses flood modern full

For more on this story, listen to our full interview with Nicole Sharp.By now you’re aware that today marks 100 years since Boston’s Great Molasses Flood (or Molasses Disaster, or whatever you may call it). This interview has been edited for length and clarity. One of them survived for a couple of hours and then he couldn't continue fighting the molasses anymore and he ended up drowning. CO: And how many of those men survived that? NS: All but one of them survived. I believe they were on the first floor and they were trapped there for hours waiting for people to be able to rescue them because they were all pinned in place. Then the upper floors of the firehouse crashed down on them. The initial wave smashed against the firehouse and pushed it almost entirely off its foundation. That was a group of men who were in a firehouse a short ways away from the molasses tank. I think the group of men who were having lunch is one of the more striking stories. only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was.' People, horses, everything just struggled to survive and died. (Wikipedia) CO: A Boston Post report at the time described it as 'molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Report from The Boston PostĪn elevated train structure was damaged by shrapnel in the disaster. only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was. Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. It's totally in line with what the historical record says. I realized that because the molasses is one and a half times denser than water and there was so much of it in this tank, in fact, fluid dynamics and the physics equations predict that it would move at speeds that are about 15 to 17 metres per second. Initially, I actually thought, 'How in the world could it really have moved that fast?' and sort of surprised myself when I started doing the calculations. How quickly was the molasses travelling, as far as your calculations show? NS: According to historical accounts, the molasses moved at a speed of 35 miles per hour, which is about 15.5 metres per second, which is really quite fast. CO: So let's talk about this wave of molasses that left the tank that day in 1919. It turns out that saying can be wrong, if you have close to 9,000 cubic metres of molasses. Sharp, do we need to rethink that old saying 'slow as molasses in January'? Nicole Sharp: Well, if you have enough molasses, then yes. She recently presented her findings on the Molasses Flood at a conference in Portland, Ore. She's a science communicator and a fluid dynamics researcher in Cambridge, Mass.

#Boston molasses flood modern crack

(Nicole Sharp) Nicole Sharp has attempted to crack the mystery wide open. Nicole Sharp is an engineer, writer and science communicator specializing in fluid dynamics.