WHAT CAN POOR PLANNING DO? UNHEEDED WARNINGS… NOT READY? UNEXPECTED?
THE GREAT MOLASSES TSUNAMI? What are you expecting at 12:40 PM in the afternoon? Children were playing. Those that worked the night shift were sleeping.
Let us understand what SORGHUM MOLASSES really is… Molasses is something like honey. It is a sugary-sweet product from sugar cane. MOLASSES is 5,000 to 10,000 times denser than water. It is impossible to swim in SORGHUM MOLASSES.
Boston had a 50 foot tall steel holding tank. As a whole the molasses came from the CARIBBEAN AREA. The sorghum molasses was used in making liquor and munitions. World War 1 had demanded tons of molasses. Many people warned the company and the area this 2.3 million gallon tank was a great danger. SEEMS NO ONE LISTENED. The tank often made rumbling noises.
It was 40 degrees on January 15, 1919 in the north end of Boston, Massachusetts. Businesses and farmers formed a MOLASSES CO-OP. They built a huge 2,300,000 gallon tank to store MOLASSES as a reserve for the area. This huge storage tank was filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses. The weight of that much MOLASSES is guessed to have been 13,000 tons. The weight caused a stress failure.
1/15/1919 there was an unexpected event. The huge molasses tank ruptured and the molasses pushed through the streets at 35 miles an hour. 21 PEOPLE WERE KILLED and 150 PEOPLE WERE INJURED. The newspapers reported there was a 15 foot high wall of thick molasses traveling 35 mph. Buildings, electric poles, horses and people were destroyed. The local fire station was knocked off its foundation. There was a ½ mile path of total destruction. North Boston had been warned many times. Profit was the motivation. Jobs were at stake. Alcohol and liquor were in great demand. The warnings were unheeded.