pat: (Default)
pat ([personal profile] pat) wrote2003-01-30 01:28 pm

TQOTD: Man-made Disasters....

It sounds like an urban legend, but it isn't. The date: January 15, 1919. The place: Boston, Massachusetts. The disaster: a great flood of.... what?



Molasses. A wave of molasses at least eight feet tall (some observers said fifteen) rushed through streets in the North End at a staggering rate of 35 m.p.h. (Um, would that be as fast as molasses?) The molasses, originally destined to be turned into rum, was from a ruptured tank at the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. 21 people were killed, 150 were injured, and the cleanup took weeks. Source: Boston Online.
kiya: (Default)

[personal profile] kiya 2003-01-30 01:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Ooh, one I knew! ;)

[identity profile] xiphias.livejournal.com 2003-01-30 01:56 pm (UTC)(link)
On hot summer days, you could still smell the molasses into the 1980s. I can't smell it anymore, but, yeah.

[identity profile] 7patches.livejournal.com 2003-01-30 02:38 pm (UTC)(link)
I knew that!

[identity profile] porcinea.livejournal.com 2003-01-30 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)
Molasses! That's the first one I've known. Phew.

[identity profile] luvlyrita.livejournal.com 2003-01-31 03:51 am (UTC)(link)
boo-hoo.....
i'm the only one who didn't know

:)