The giant tank was made of steel plate fastened with rivets, the standard technology of that time. Today, large industrial storage tanks would be built in unpopulated areas, for reasons that became obvious after the disaster. USIA decided to put it in the North End of Boston, which was geographically suitable, although the North End was a residential area primarily occupied by poor Italian immigrants. Because the cheapest feedstock for alcohol is molasses, USIA authorized the construction of a large molasses storage tank located in the port of Boston and near its distillery. One of the ingredients for these explosives was ethyl alcohol, so USIA had every reason to expand its distillery capacity. Companies like DuPont and Hercules Powder had orders for all of the explosives they could ship. When the Great War cannons opened fire in 1914, the need for high explosives required immediate expansion of munitions factories. (Molasses is a byproduct of sugar refining.) The molasses arrived in ocean tankers from the Caribbean sugar refineries. Its subsidiary, Purity Distilling Co., produced alcohol from molasses in an East Cambridge, Mass., distillery. The company that was responsible for the disaster was the United States Industrial Alcohol Co., or USIA. In 1920, an MIT professor’s testimony proved to the judge that the tank was built in the wrong place and without proper engineering. Later, of course, I realized that it was a relic of the Great Molasses Flood that took place only two miles from campus. I idly wondered why it was in the curriculum at all. The formulas were not very complicated, and the topic was over in two days. When I was a freshman at MIT in 1951, one of the first topics we covered was hoop stress. Structures still can collapse, as proved by the bridge collapse in Genoa, Italy, in August, but such disasters are less frequent. The same thing that collapsed the molasses tank caused many Liberty ships to break in half during World War II. In cold weather, steel becomes brittle and can snap. It is a classic tale taught to materials engineers and mechanical engineers in their first course on fracture. Romig knew all about the Great Molasses Flood. I corresponded with Al Romig, executive director of the National Academy of Engineering. The suit spent three years in the courtroom and resulted in damages that were a record for the time.Ī positive result from the disaster was a revision of building codes and engineering standards. There was a class-action lawsuit against the tank owner. Its scale and severity were great, and its location right in the middle of the city attracted much more attention than it would have had it taken place in Peoria. There are many reasons to mark the centennial of this grisly catastrophe. Pulling living and dead bodies from the sticky molasses was very difficult, but the rescuers’ work was heroic and kept the death toll from rising even higher. Rescue forces appeared immediately-police, firemen, nearby workers, and 100 sailors from a Navy ship in the harbor. The supports for the elevated trains were knocked out, and an approaching train barely managed to stop before it would have plunged to the street. Many horses died, and there was large-spread property damage. 15, 1919, a giant steel tank containing 2.3 million gallons of molasses disintegrated in Boston, sending a tsunami of molasses flowing in all directions. Take United States Industrial Alcohol Co., which 100 years ago was involved in one of the most fascinating industrial accidents in history. History shows that companies can experience one bad event after another and still survive. The views expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Morningstar.
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