The Great Molasses Flood
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The Great Molasses Flood
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On January 15, 1919, an enormous steel tank in Boston’s North End suddenly came apart.
In seconds, approximately 2.3 million gallons of molasses surged through Commercial Street, destroying buildings, sweeping away people and horses, and leaving rescuers struggling through a disaster unlike anything they had encountered before.
Twenty-one people would die. Around 150 would be injured.
But the Great Molasses Flood didn’t begin when the tank ruptured.
For more than three years, it had leaked. Workers had raised concerns. Repairs had been made. The tank had never received a proper full-load test.
And yet it kept standing.
In Episode 4 of Chain of Events, we follow the Great Molasses Flood from the construction of the Commercial Street tank through the terrifying minutes of January 15, the rescue effort, the years-long fight to determine responsibility, and the engineering evidence that eventually revealed what went wrong.
Because sometimes the most dangerous warning is the one that keeps happening without a disaster.
Until it does.
