Jan 15, 1919: a large molasses storage tank burst, & molasses rushed through the streets of Boston

[Bucky]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_molasses_disaster

[SoxFan]

1. The harbor tours point out the site of the tank

Apparently, downtown and the waterfront stunk for months afterwards.

[Deja Q]

2. Was the tank made in China?

:yoiks:

[JonLP24]

3. Reminds me of this

'SWEETHEART CITY' HIT BY MOLASSES
The Boston Globe (Boston, MA) | February 17, 1990| Associated Press |

LOVELAND, Colo. - A mass of molasses oozed through two blocks of Colorado's "Sweetheart City" yesterday after a storage tank ruptured, forcing a kindergarten to close and blocking several businesses. No one ...

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P2-8161021.html
Site of where the molasses came from.


Also home to one of the funniest pictures I ever saw

[ccharles000]

4. how does molasses rush?

[Chan790]

5. Slowly? n/m

[GreenPartyVoter]

6. LOL Good point!

[yewberry]

8. At 35 miles an hour.

It was a lot of molasses.

[kentauros]

9. Pretty fast, when you consider the amounts involved...

Near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed, there was a loud rumbling sound like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 to 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h), and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm). As described by author Stephen Puleo:

"Molasses, waist deep, covered the street and swirled and bubbled about the wreckage. Here and there struggled a form — whether it was animal or human being was impossible to tell. Only an upheaval, a thrashing about in the sticky mass, showed where any life was... Horses died like so many flies on sticky fly-paper. The more they struggled, the deeper in the mess they were ensnared. Human beings — men and women — suffered likewise"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Molasses_Disaster

[grasswire]

7. this was really a terrible disaster

I learned about it in ths '70s from a magazine article -- maybe Yankee magazine. It was just horrible.

[graywarrior]

10. Sometimes you can still smell the molasses on a hot day.