Episode 33: The Boston Molasses Flood

Disaster Area

Truecrime, Explosions, Aviationaccidents, Floods, Fires, Earthquakes, History, Shipwrecks, Volcanoes, Disaster, Hurricanes, Planecrashes, Disasters, Tornadoes, Massshootings, Society & Culture

4.2 • 839 Ratings

🗓️ 23 March 2017

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It towered over Commercial Street in the North End of Boston, its massive form looming over the elevated train tracks and Engine #31 firehouse. It groaned loudly every time it was filled, its contents leaking in an absurd mockery of bleeding. It wordlessly threatened for years to collapse. Finally, on January 15, 1919, it spilled its contents onto the neighborhood -- 2.3 million gallons of molasses.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone. This is Jennifer Metterice, and before I get started today, I just like to apologize for the lateness of this particular episode.
0:09.4	Two and a half weeks ago, I started a new job, and last week, Mother Nature decided to dump three feet of snow on my hometown.
0:17.1	But most importantly, I've been having some issues with my depression that have been making
0:21.3	it difficult to do a lot of things, not just produce the podcast.
0:26.3	Things have been picking up luckily, but depression is always a struggle.
0:31.8	A reminder, as always, if you'd like to support the podcast, and by extension the podcaster, you can do so on a per
0:38.9	episode basis through Patreon, not Patreon, with a one-time donation through PayPal, or simply
0:46.5	by rating and reviewing the podcast on iTunes.
0:51.1	And finally, this episode's subject was chosen by D. I am so sorry it took as long as it did to get this episode out there, but this is one of those disasters that, again, I kept meaning to cover it, and then other disasters would pop up that I wanted to do. So I'm really happy that I finally got to do this one.
1:12.6	It's one of those disasters.
1:14.3	Anybody who's interested in disasters and even people who aren't want to talk about.
1:19.6	So with all of that taken care of,
1:22.7	thank you guys so much for being so patient and welcome to disaster area.
1:34.3	Episode 33, the Boston molasses flood. January 15th, 1919, 21 deceased, 150 injured. On a hot summer day in Boston, you can still smell the molasses.
1:50.8	Well, that was the rumor anyway. The story stems from one of the most unusual disasters to ever
1:56.4	occur in the United States. If not anywhere. We've experienced floods, we've experienced
2:03.2	explosions, but the Boston Molasses Flood has the dubious distinction of being a terrible
2:09.1	disaster with a fascinating aspect. It's a molasses flood. The thought of an enormous wall
2:16.6	of molasses bearing down on a Boston neighborhood is
2:19.7	undercut by the randomness of the molasses.
2:23.4	In fact, the molasses makes the whole thing seem a little bit silly, so silly in fact that
2:28.5	many people may not know the disaster has a body count.
	...

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