Episode 105: Great Molasses Flood

CW: Property Destruction, Death, Animal Harm

Molasses— sticky, sweet, and responsible for destroying a large part of Boston. On a hot summer’s day, some people swear they still smell the remnants of the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. The substance oozed through town and wrought sugary destruction, destroying vehicles and buildings alike. In this episode, we talk about how it spilled and the difficulty of dealing with such an enormous amount of an incredibly strange accident.

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Let’s start with some of the historic images. These all come from Getty Images.

These images start with the coverage from The Boston Post. The second picture shows the intact tank, and everything after that shows the destruction from after the flood. In one image, you can see the knee-deep molasses as firefighters try to clear rubble.

Let’s move to an article that gives the overview of the situation. There’s quotes and also more pictures here.

The Overview

Here’s another one that also has quotes and other pictures in it.

The History

This article goes into why the molasses flood was so deadly.

Why It Was Deadly

Here’s the Scientific American article about the physics behind the molasses flood and why it was, scientifically, so deadly. It talks about the properties of molasses and how it behaves in this weird situation.

The Science

And while we’re talking science, here’s the videos the three of us watched about non-newtonian fluids. One is just for learning, but the other three are for fun.

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