WEBVTT - Treacle Tears: The Boston Molasses Disaster 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:21.170 Pushkin. I'm teaming up with the historian and co host 0:00:21.210 --> 0:00:24.650 of the after Dark podcast, Dr Maddie Pelling to talk 0:00:24.690 --> 0:00:27.490 about her new book Hoax, and we want to hear 0:00:27.570 --> 0:00:31.690 your questions about scams and con artists. We'd have a 0:00:31.690 --> 0:00:34.650 swindler on cautionary tales, and we've featured a fair few 0:00:34.690 --> 0:00:38.130 over the years, including the cheeky art forger Eric Heborn, 0:00:38.410 --> 0:00:42.090 the shoemaker turned captain of Kerpenick, and who could forget 0:00:42.490 --> 0:00:47.010 Dr Brinkley with his miracle cure for impotence goat glands? 0:00:47.770 --> 0:00:51.370 What makes these stories so appealing? We'll aim to answer 0:00:51.410 --> 0:00:54.370 that and any other hoax based question you send in 0:00:54.890 --> 0:00:59.010 just email Tales at Pushkin dot fm by the thirtieth 0:00:59.010 --> 0:01:08.610 of June. Boston, January nineteen nineteen. Giuseppe Yantoska stands at 0:01:08.610 --> 0:01:11.970 his kitchen window searching for his ten year old son. 0:01:13.810 --> 0:01:16.770 All sorts of people come and go in Boston's North End, 0:01:16.970 --> 0:01:19.490 and Giuseppe likes to keep a close eye on little 0:01:19.530 --> 0:01:25.050 Pasquale or Pasqualino, as he's affectionately known at home. Giuseppe 0:01:25.250 --> 0:01:28.810 doesn't speak much English like many of their neighbors. The 0:01:28.890 --> 0:01:33.730 Antoscas hail from southern Italy. They're very poor. Even with 0:01:33.810 --> 0:01:38.290 Giuseppe's shifts at the Boston and Maine Railroad backbreaking work 0:01:38.410 --> 0:01:42.770 laying track, they struggle to make ends meet. Fresh milk 0:01:42.850 --> 0:01:45.090 and meat are rare. It is in the Antosca house 0:01:45.370 --> 0:01:48.490 and Giuseppe and his wife Maria worry about their six 0:01:48.650 --> 0:01:56.050 small children. Where is Pasqualino. Giuseppe surveys Commercial Street, a 0:01:56.130 --> 0:02:00.170 thoroughfare beneath his window that curves along the water. It's 0:02:00.210 --> 0:02:03.930 an unusually fine day from mid January, and the harbor 0:02:04.130 --> 0:02:07.890 is bustling. Fishermen hurry to their lunch, a plate of 0:02:07.930 --> 0:02:11.810 spaghetti at home, power as a pie from Partial's bakery. 0:02:12.570 --> 0:02:16.530 Dock workers shout as they unload shipping crates and horse 0:02:16.610 --> 0:02:22.130 drawn wagons hauling beer barrels mingle with peddler's carts. Motorized 0:02:22.170 --> 0:02:25.650 trucks rattle to and from the factories that ring the 0:02:25.730 --> 0:02:31.570 north end. Giuseppe scans the elevated railroad that swoops above 0:02:31.650 --> 0:02:36.250 Commercial Street and the freight trains directly beneath it. Finally, 0:02:36.850 --> 0:02:41.250 he traces the hulking storage tank that dominates the wharf. 0:02:42.010 --> 0:02:45.850 His eyes flick to a tiny figure clad in red 0:02:46.490 --> 0:02:49.810 and crouching in the shadow of the high steel walls. 0:02:50.890 --> 0:02:57.730 Pasqualino Giuseppe breathes a sigh of relief. Down on the wharf, 0:02:58.090 --> 0:03:02.090 pasquale A Tosca and his friends Tony and Maria Destacio 0:03:02.410 --> 0:03:07.770 are huddling beside the enormous storage tank fifty feet high 0:03:07.810 --> 0:03:12.930 and ninety feet wide. Its grumbles and shudders and its sweet, 0:03:13.170 --> 0:03:17.810 earthy scent are familiar to them. The tank isn't designed 0:03:17.850 --> 0:03:24.290 to store diesel or grain, but of all things, a thick, dark, 0:03:24.810 --> 0:03:31.090 sugary liquid and glasses. It pools around the base of 0:03:31.130 --> 0:03:35.130 the tank, and the children like to play there, dodging 0:03:35.290 --> 0:03:39.730 stern railroad workers to scoop the sticky liquid into their 0:03:39.770 --> 0:03:45.690 pails and hurrying home with their syrupy treasure. But today 0:03:46.210 --> 0:03:50.930 Pasqualino doesn't feel like playing. He knows his father's watching him. 0:03:51.170 --> 0:03:56.130 He's also very hot beneath his bright red knitwear. It's 0:03:56.170 --> 0:03:59.490 the second sweater his mother insisted he wear that morning. 0:04:00.450 --> 0:04:03.770 She fears him catching a cold. But the day's mild, 0:04:03.850 --> 0:04:06.170 and the extra bolk also slows him down. As he 0:04:06.210 --> 0:04:13.130 gathers firewood, the tank groans, which isn't unusual. A fresh 0:04:13.250 --> 0:04:17.130 load of the sugary substance has recently arrived from the Caribbean. 0:04:18.210 --> 0:04:24.330 Pasqualino looks up at the massive container fifty foot streams 0:04:24.450 --> 0:04:30.490 of my glasses seep down its side in long, treakily tears. 0:04:32.210 --> 0:04:59.610 I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales. Arthur P. 0:05:00.010 --> 0:05:04.170 Gell had his work cut out. It was late nineteen 0:05:04.330 --> 0:05:08.690 fourteen and had been tasked with building an enormous malasses 0:05:08.730 --> 0:05:15.170 contained near Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gell was assistant treasurer at the 0:05:15.210 --> 0:05:22.010 Purity Distilling Company, part of United States Industrial Alcohol or USIA. 0:05:22.930 --> 0:05:28.370 USIA processed molasses into alcohol for munitions like dynamite and 0:05:28.490 --> 0:05:33.370 smokeless powder, so when Europe went to war in nineteen fourteen, 0:05:34.130 --> 0:05:38.570 the company had begun boosting production. Its plant in Cambridge 0:05:38.610 --> 0:05:41.810 was one of the largest in the country, but USIA 0:05:42.050 --> 0:05:45.650 struggled to keep up with demand. It didn't have its 0:05:45.690 --> 0:05:49.690 own storage facility, so it had to source its molasses 0:05:49.730 --> 0:05:53.050 from a broker in South Boston rather than directly from 0:05:53.090 --> 0:06:00.090 the Caribbean. This, in turn, eight into profits. To truly 0:06:00.210 --> 0:06:04.770 make hay while the sun shone, USIA needed its own tank, 0:06:05.330 --> 0:06:08.090 one that would be up and running by December thirty, 0:06:08.170 --> 0:06:12.450 first nineteen teen fifteen, and it was decided that reliable, 0:06:12.770 --> 0:06:19.050 efficient Arthur Jell was the man for the job. The 0:06:19.050 --> 0:06:23.890 deadline was virtually impossible, but Gell's bosses had hinted that 0:06:23.970 --> 0:06:27.450 if he succeeded, a New York City promotion was on 0:06:27.530 --> 0:06:31.610 the cards. He was determined to give it his best shot. 0:06:35.370 --> 0:06:39.930 As Stephen Pulio explains in his book Dark Tide, Gell 0:06:40.050 --> 0:06:44.090 had spent his professional life in a range of clerical positions. 0:06:44.610 --> 0:06:48.250 An experienced administrator, he was confident that he knew the 0:06:48.330 --> 0:06:53.570 right people. He consulted other tank manufacturers about the appropriate 0:06:53.650 --> 0:06:56.410 factor of safety for a container like this one, and 0:06:56.530 --> 0:07:00.490 ordered steel plates to form the sides of the cylindrical structure. 0:07:01.930 --> 0:07:05.210 He also negotiated a lease for the perfect spot in 0:07:05.410 --> 0:07:10.850 Boston's North End. Here steamships from the Caribbean could discharge 0:07:10.890 --> 0:07:14.170 the molasses, and the sugary substance could then travel on 0:07:14.250 --> 0:07:18.850 to the Cambridge plant by railcar. Sure, the area was 0:07:19.010 --> 0:07:23.210 densely populated, and there was a children's playground right next 0:07:23.210 --> 0:07:26.450 to the proposed tank site, but Jell knew that the 0:07:26.490 --> 0:07:30.690 residents of the North End were unlikely to resist the structure. 0:07:32.450 --> 0:07:36.170 Many of them were poor immigrants from Italy's south. They 0:07:36.170 --> 0:07:39.410 didn't speak English and kept to their own tight enclave. 0:07:39.970 --> 0:07:46.050 Their political participation was scant. All the same, lease negotiations 0:07:46.090 --> 0:07:50.130 were slow. By the time Gell had secured the location, 0:07:50.530 --> 0:07:54.770 it was September nineteen fifteen and the clock was ticking. 0:07:55.530 --> 0:07:59.770 Ever resourceful, he installed electric lighting at the wharf so 0:07:59.810 --> 0:08:03.490 that the construction crew could work through the night. But 0:08:03.610 --> 0:08:10.450 when a laborer fell inside the empty tank, lost more time, 0:08:11.290 --> 0:08:15.610 so traumatized with the other workers by the dying man's screams. 0:08:17.410 --> 0:08:21.770 Then a superstorm blasted Boston and he lost a further 0:08:21.850 --> 0:08:30.130 two days. Gel couldn't afford any more embarrassing setbacks or expenses. 0:08:31.050 --> 0:08:34.050 When the time came to test the tank for leaks, 0:08:34.770 --> 0:08:37.410 he knew that they could only fill the massive structure 0:08:37.650 --> 0:08:41.410 by tapping into the municipal water supply. This would be 0:08:41.570 --> 0:08:45.330 time consuming and costly, so he came up with a solution. 0:08:46.290 --> 0:08:49.610 The crew ran six inches of water into the bottom 0:08:49.610 --> 0:08:52.330 of the container to just above the first joint at 0:08:52.330 --> 0:08:55.930 its base. If the first joint didn't leak, right with 0:08:56.050 --> 0:09:00.890 the rest of them, the tank held its six inches 0:09:00.930 --> 0:09:06.810 of water and Gel announced that it was ready. It 0:09:06.890 --> 0:09:16.970 was late December nineteen fifteen, he had met his impossible deadline. 0:09:17.290 --> 0:09:23.130 Business boomed. From nineteen fourteen to nineteen sixteen, USIA's net 0:09:23.210 --> 0:09:29.450 profit increased nearly ninefold. The investors were thrilled. In April 0:09:29.530 --> 0:09:34.250 nineteen seventeen, the US declared war on Germany, and Gell 0:09:34.490 --> 0:09:37.330 was ready to show the managers in New York that 0:09:37.490 --> 0:09:43.610 Boston could rise to the challenge. That month, a munitions 0:09:43.650 --> 0:09:50.250 factory in Pennsylvania was bombed, the work of foreign employees 0:09:50.330 --> 0:09:55.090 who were angry about the war. Italian anarchists were said 0:09:55.130 --> 0:10:00.530 to be behind other similar bombings. Jell took note and 0:10:00.810 --> 0:10:06.410 increased security at the Boston Tank. A couple of weeks later, 0:10:06.770 --> 0:10:12.170 Gell ran into another complication. A man called Isaac Gonzales 0:10:12.410 --> 0:10:18.250 burst into his Cambridge office uninvited and unapproved. Gonzales was 0:10:18.330 --> 0:10:23.530 also a USIA employee, the assistant to the caretaker at 0:10:23.530 --> 0:10:27.010 the Boston Tank, and he was raving about some leaks 0:10:27.050 --> 0:10:32.010 in the structure. Apparently the tank oozed gallons of molasses 0:10:32.130 --> 0:10:36.690 onto the wharf. Everyone had noticed, and children even liked 0:10:36.730 --> 0:10:41.450 to play with it. Gonzales shoved tiny pieces of steel 0:10:41.650 --> 0:10:45.970 into Jell's hands and said that rusty flex dropped into 0:10:46.010 --> 0:10:50.450 his hair each time he entered the tank. Gell did 0:10:50.450 --> 0:10:54.810 his best to keep calm. This man was clearly paranoid. 0:10:55.410 --> 0:10:58.810 Even obsessed molasses had a life of its own, and 0:10:58.890 --> 0:11:02.850 leaks were normal, especially in a relatively new structure, and 0:11:03.090 --> 0:11:07.210 especially after a fresh shipment. Plus, Jel had had the 0:11:07.250 --> 0:11:11.410 tank resealed, so he knew it was being maintained. He 0:11:11.490 --> 0:11:14.810 told Gonzales that he needed to do a better job 0:11:14.850 --> 0:11:19.090 of keeping the neighborhood children away from company property. That 0:11:19.170 --> 0:11:24.050 would shut him up. He thought it didn't shut him up. Next, 0:11:24.250 --> 0:11:27.370 Gonzales revealed he had been sleeping at the tank so 0:11:27.410 --> 0:11:31.130 that he could sound the alarm should it start to fall. 0:11:32.490 --> 0:11:38.410 Jell was disturbed. Company employees should be returning home after work. 0:11:39.210 --> 0:11:43.010 The tank still stands. The tank will stand, he snapped. 0:11:43.690 --> 0:11:46.210 Then he sent the man on his way, promising to 0:11:46.290 --> 0:11:50.410 fire him if he breathed another word of this nonsense. Yes, 0:11:50.650 --> 0:11:55.250 Arthur Jell was a reliable, efficient man. Nothing would hinder 0:11:55.250 --> 0:12:00.010 productivity on his watch, not saboteurs with bombs, and certainly 0:12:00.050 --> 0:12:07.850 not some jumped up manual laborer. Isaac Gonzales returned to 0:12:07.850 --> 0:12:14.290 his post through nineteen seventeen and nineteen eighteen, other Bostonians 0:12:14.370 --> 0:12:17.610 muttered to him about the tank. The men of Engine 0:12:17.770 --> 0:12:21.050 thirty one fire house, which stood just along the wharf, 0:12:21.690 --> 0:12:26.010 commented on the obvious leaks that streaked its sides and 0:12:26.090 --> 0:12:31.330 the strange sounds it made. When another local worker pressed 0:12:31.370 --> 0:12:34.530 his back against the tank, he told Isaac it felt 0:12:34.570 --> 0:12:39.290 as though the steel walls were moving, pulsing in and 0:12:39.410 --> 0:12:45.650 out with the flow of the liquid inside. Gonzales continued 0:12:45.690 --> 0:12:50.330 his nighttime vigil in secret. Of course, he knew he 0:12:50.370 --> 0:12:54.330 couldn't speak to jail again, but in nineteen eighteen he 0:12:54.450 --> 0:12:59.410 complained to his superintendent, William White, he waited to see 0:12:59.410 --> 0:13:04.610 if his bosses would do anything. They did. In August, 0:13:05.210 --> 0:13:11.690 a crew arrived at the tank paint in Gel had 0:13:11.810 --> 0:13:15.970 ordered them to adore the gray steel walls with a 0:13:16.090 --> 0:13:23.850 dark red brown, the color of molasses. Gonzales had had enough. 0:13:24.610 --> 0:13:31.050 He quit his job and joined the army. Cautionary tales 0:13:31.290 --> 0:13:45.810 will return. Usia had done well out of the war 0:13:45.890 --> 0:13:49.570 in Europe, but when the armistice was signed in November 0:13:49.690 --> 0:13:54.930 nineteen eighteen, it faced a steep fall in profits. Assistant 0:13:55.090 --> 0:13:59.970 Treasurer Arthur jell knew all too well that the investors 0:14:00.130 --> 0:14:04.290 wouldn't be happy, but all was not lost. As the 0:14:04.370 --> 0:14:09.050 United States looked to ratify the eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution, 0:14:10.290 --> 0:14:16.850 Usia spotted a slim window of opportunity. The prohibition of 0:14:16.890 --> 0:14:22.650 the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors wouldn't actually 0:14:22.730 --> 0:14:27.130 go into effect for another year, during which time there 0:14:27.130 --> 0:14:32.610 would surely be a spike in alcohol sales. Usia resolved 0:14:32.650 --> 0:14:36.890 to repurpose its distilleries for the liquor industry. It would 0:14:36.930 --> 0:14:42.650 once again make hay while the sun shone. On January 0:14:42.730 --> 0:14:48.370 the twelfth, nineteen nineteen, a ship cruised into Boston Harbor 0:14:48.850 --> 0:14:55.970 with one point three million gallons of molasses. The dark, 0:14:56.330 --> 0:15:00.850 viscous liquid had been warmed to facilitate its transfer, and 0:15:00.930 --> 0:15:05.090 it flowed easily into the tank. By next morning, the 0:15:05.130 --> 0:15:09.090 container was very nearly full. It held two point bis 0:15:09.250 --> 0:15:14.410 three million gallons of the sticky substance, weighing roughly twenty 0:15:14.530 --> 0:15:20.810 six million pounds. The weather in Boston had been bitterly cold, 0:15:21.290 --> 0:15:25.690 and when the warm, free flowing molasses topped up the colder, 0:15:26.090 --> 0:15:32.450 thicker liquid already in the tank, something unexpected happened. The 0:15:32.490 --> 0:15:37.890 introduction of all that additional heat accelerated a fermentation process 0:15:38.290 --> 0:15:43.650 producing carbon dioxide. The gas had nowhere to go, and 0:15:43.730 --> 0:15:47.490 it began to push against the steel walls of the tank. 0:15:49.610 --> 0:15:54.050 USIA's only responsibility, as the company saw it, was to 0:15:54.090 --> 0:15:58.930 maximize profit. Somehow, that always seemed to mean profit now 0:15:59.130 --> 0:16:05.050 rather than profit later, and so Arthur Gel prioritized speed, 0:16:05.610 --> 0:16:13.850 growth and quarterly returns. If that sounds familiar, it could 0:16:13.890 --> 0:16:18.290 be because Silicon Valley has become famous or infamous for 0:16:18.370 --> 0:16:23.850 a similar corporate logic. Facebook's motto was move fast and 0:16:23.970 --> 0:16:28.250 Break things, and it became the tech world's battle cry. 0:16:29.490 --> 0:16:33.730 A move fast and break things culture can encourage innovation 0:16:34.250 --> 0:16:39.170 and banish fear of mistakes. After all, errors are path 0:16:39.290 --> 0:16:43.450 of the course, especially when you're making something new. And 0:16:43.530 --> 0:16:48.210 while slow and steady can bring small, consistent benefits to 0:16:48.290 --> 0:16:52.810 a business, throwing caution to the wind might generate a 0:16:52.850 --> 0:17:00.210 single massive payoff. But when a corporation values efficiency and 0:17:00.330 --> 0:17:07.050 growth above all else, there can be other consequences environmental costs, 0:17:07.210 --> 0:17:12.210 community welfare, and work. Because rights fall by the wayside, 0:17:12.410 --> 0:17:18.490 safeguards are eroded, accountability dissolves, and harm is written off 0:17:19.250 --> 0:17:27.650 as a cost of doing business. January fifteenth, nineteen nineteen 0:17:28.130 --> 0:17:32.490 is a cloudy day in Boston, but unusually mild. The 0:17:32.570 --> 0:17:35.890 weather has been punishingly cold of late, and the people 0:17:35.930 --> 0:17:39.210 of the North End take advantage of the slight thaw 0:17:40.090 --> 0:17:44.090 At lunchtime. The harbor is a buzz Workers eat their 0:17:44.170 --> 0:17:48.410 lunch on front steps and chatter on sidewalks. The mood 0:17:48.890 --> 0:17:54.890 is a mellow tank. Superintendent William White has just received 0:17:54.930 --> 0:17:58.170 a phone call from his wife. She has her eye 0:17:58.170 --> 0:18:01.610 on new dress and wants to go shopping together. It'll 0:18:01.650 --> 0:18:04.650 be a quiet workday now that the new load of 0:18:04.730 --> 0:18:09.890 molasses has been safely delivered, and White sees no not 0:18:10.050 --> 0:18:16.450 to spoil her. Just before midday, he leaves his post. 0:18:17.410 --> 0:18:21.090 If he had lingered, he might have noticed Pasquale and 0:18:21.250 --> 0:18:25.370 Tosca and the Dastacio children sneaking onto the wall to 0:18:25.410 --> 0:18:32.250 collect firewood. Instead. A railroad worker begins scolding Maria d'astasio. 0:18:33.050 --> 0:18:36.690 You shouldn't be here, he chides, this isn't a playground. 0:18:38.850 --> 0:18:41.810 Just along the wharf, the men of the Engine thirty 0:18:41.850 --> 0:18:46.290 one Firehouse are playing whist on their lunch break, smoking 0:18:46.330 --> 0:18:50.730 their pipes and mocking bay Ruth's ridiculous demands for a 0:18:50.770 --> 0:18:54.170 pay rise. The baseball star would never survive on a 0:18:54.210 --> 0:18:59.250 firefighter's wage, They scoff. Fifty six year old John Barry, 0:18:59.850 --> 0:19:03.730 a stonecutter for the City of Boston Street Department, has 0:19:03.810 --> 0:19:07.970 joined them from his workshop next door. Burly and muscular, 0:19:08.450 --> 0:19:12.930 Barry is physically formidable, but his friends at the firehouse 0:19:13.090 --> 0:19:16.530 know that his ten children are never far from his thoughts. 0:19:19.170 --> 0:19:23.570 What was that It sounded like thunder? One of the 0:19:23.610 --> 0:19:28.970 firefighters scrambles to a window. His face darkens with fear. 0:19:29.810 --> 0:19:34.690 Oh my god, he cries. Run at his kitchen window. 0:19:34.970 --> 0:19:39.690 Giuseppe yan Tosca jumps back in horror. He's been following 0:19:39.730 --> 0:19:44.330 his Pasqualino as he gathers firewood, tracing that bright red 0:19:44.370 --> 0:19:48.330 sweater as it bobs along the gray wharf. But something 0:19:48.370 --> 0:19:53.090 has just swallowed the little boy. A kind of dark, 0:19:53.490 --> 0:19:59.890 gleaming wave pushing forwards, tearing towards Commercial Street. The kitchen 0:19:59.970 --> 0:20:03.250 growls and shakes, and before he can move, Giuseppe has 0:20:03.250 --> 0:20:09.250 been thrown to the floor. He hits his head, everything 0:20:09.330 --> 0:20:15.930 goes back. At a call box on Commercial Street, policeman 0:20:16.170 --> 0:20:21.090 Frank McManus is making a routine report to headquarters that 0:20:21.730 --> 0:20:28.090 chilling sound somewhere between a thunderclap and sickening scrape of 0:20:28.170 --> 0:20:34.370 metal makes him turn receiver still to his mouth. He 0:20:34.450 --> 0:20:37.970 can't quite believe what he's seeing, but he manages to 0:20:38.090 --> 0:20:42.370 utter a few shocked words to the dispatcher. Send all 0:20:42.410 --> 0:20:46.370 available rescue vehicles and personnel immediately. There's a wave of 0:20:46.530 --> 0:20:53.250 molasses coming down Commercial Street. What follows is the stuff 0:20:53.370 --> 0:20:59.250 of nightmares. The tank has burst clean open rid, its 0:20:59.330 --> 0:21:05.170 screaming through the air like shrapnels. The worker trapped in 0:21:05.250 --> 0:21:09.410 the railroad freight office saw the tank's steel walls fly 0:21:09.570 --> 0:21:15.690 into other buildings, which crumpled like egg. Two point three 0:21:16.170 --> 0:21:20.570 million gallons of molasses has rushed onto the wharf, a 0:21:20.810 --> 0:21:26.010 syrupite tsunami, thirty five feet high, one hundred and sixty 0:21:26.010 --> 0:21:29.730 feet wide, and traveling at thirty five miles per hour. 0:21:30.490 --> 0:21:34.490 It snuffs out the daylight and wrenches the fire house 0:21:34.530 --> 0:21:43.850 from its foundations on Commercial Street. In the dining room 0:21:43.890 --> 0:21:48.850 of his second floor apartment, Robert Burnett, he is a swish, 0:21:48.890 --> 0:21:53.290 like a brushing of wind. A shadow falls across the room, 0:21:53.490 --> 0:21:57.810 and he hurries to the window. A great black wave 0:21:58.010 --> 0:22:02.890 is bearing down on the house. Burnett snatches at his 0:22:03.010 --> 0:22:06.010 front door that the wave is already surging up the 0:22:06.010 --> 0:22:09.730 stairs in the hallway. He slams the door and runs 0:22:09.730 --> 0:22:14.930 for the roof. The wall of molasses rebounds off buildings, 0:22:14.970 --> 0:22:20.890 shattering windows and pulverizing brickwork. It twists and snaps the 0:22:20.970 --> 0:22:25.530 steel girders of an elevated railroad, obliterating the track for 0:22:25.570 --> 0:22:29.570 more than one hundred feet. Horses, carts, and motor trucks 0:22:29.570 --> 0:22:41.210 are overturned, Children and adults vanish in a treatily deluge. 0:22:42.050 --> 0:22:48.010 Stonecutter John Barry lies in total darkness, wood and metal 0:22:48.370 --> 0:22:54.570 crushing his back its agony. He can barely breathe. When 0:22:54.650 --> 0:22:58.690 the wave of molasses ripped the firehouse off its foundations, 0:22:59.170 --> 0:23:04.570 the building collapse and the treacherous syrup seeped through the debris. 0:23:05.770 --> 0:23:12.810 Barry is trapped, pinned, face down, one cheek grinding into molasses. 0:23:13.610 --> 0:23:16.770 Only his left arm is free, and he clears the 0:23:16.890 --> 0:23:22.410 vile liquid from his face as best he can. Barry 0:23:22.530 --> 0:23:26.970 tries to call out to scream, but his voice is 0:23:27.090 --> 0:23:33.170 thin and reading. He imagines foul rats scuttling over his body, 0:23:34.010 --> 0:23:38.370 burrowing their yellow teeth into his flesh. I'm going to 0:23:38.450 --> 0:23:43.850 die here, he thinks. He wonders what will become of 0:23:43.930 --> 0:23:54.490 his ten children. On his kitchen floor, Giuseppe and Tosca 0:23:54.530 --> 0:23:58.210 comes too. His wife Maria is crying in the corner 0:23:58.290 --> 0:24:04.410 of the room. One of their daughters is comforting her bruised. Stunned, 0:24:05.210 --> 0:24:09.610 Giuseppe pulls himself up and goes shakily to the door. 0:24:10.410 --> 0:24:17.730 He will find Pasqualino. If it kills him. Cautionary tails 0:24:17.730 --> 0:24:29.130 would be back shortly. In the first moments of the disaster, 0:24:29.570 --> 0:24:33.290 the molasses flowed through the streets of Boston like water, 0:24:34.370 --> 0:24:37.770 or perhaps like ketchup being jiggled out of a bottle. 0:24:38.970 --> 0:24:43.410 Like ketchup, molasses flows freely when being violently shaken and 0:24:43.570 --> 0:24:47.210 exploding out of a high pressure tank is certainly a 0:24:47.330 --> 0:24:54.690 violent movement, but when malasses cools, it thickens. On January 0:24:54.690 --> 0:24:57.810 the fifteenth, the temperature in Boston had climbed a little, 0:24:58.450 --> 0:25:01.450 but the winter air was still much cooler than the 0:25:01.490 --> 0:25:05.130 syrupy liquid, and as it flowed out of the tank 0:25:05.250 --> 0:25:09.930 and through the streets, it began to slow and congeal 0:25:11.290 --> 0:25:17.530 like quicksand it tracked its victims. As the Boston Post explained, 0:25:18.690 --> 0:25:22.610 snared in its flood was to be stifled Once it 0:25:22.770 --> 0:25:27.930 smeared ahead human or animal, there was no coughing off 0:25:28.010 --> 0:25:31.610 the sticky mass. To attempt to wipe it with hands 0:25:31.730 --> 0:25:35.090 was to make it worse. It plugged the nostrils almost 0:25:35.130 --> 0:25:40.730 air tight. Horses thrashed around in the glooy mass like 0:25:41.010 --> 0:25:46.170 so many flies on sticky flypaper. They couldn't be freed 0:25:47.130 --> 0:25:53.130 and were shot dead. At a local relief station, nurses 0:25:53.210 --> 0:25:58.530 and orderlies streaked with molasses treated the injured. They carried 0:25:58.610 --> 0:26:04.170 patients on sticky stretchers, cutaway clothing, and cleaned gaping wounds. 0:26:05.090 --> 0:26:09.010 Anguished Bostonians clamored to know if their missing relatives were there. 0:26:09.930 --> 0:26:14.490 A lucky few were relatively unscathed. Five year old Albert 0:26:14.610 --> 0:26:17.810 Janshi had been picked up by the wave and drenched 0:26:17.810 --> 0:26:21.570 in molasses, but was miraculously unhurt. Once he had been 0:26:21.650 --> 0:26:24.450 cleaned up and had something to eat, he was allowed 0:26:24.450 --> 0:26:35.130 to return home. Others were taken straight to the local morgue. 0:26:35.370 --> 0:26:40.410 In the ruins of the firehouse, John Barry's back seared 0:26:40.490 --> 0:26:46.570 with pain. Despite his incredible strength, he couldn't move. He 0:26:46.570 --> 0:26:51.370 couldn't see anything either. It was pitch black, but he 0:26:51.370 --> 0:26:55.690 could hear something with the shred of energy he had left. 0:26:56.450 --> 0:27:01.810 He strained his ears. There it was again a man's voice. 0:27:02.690 --> 0:27:06.850 He wasn't alone down here. His friends were imprisoned with 0:27:06.970 --> 0:27:11.690 him in the debris. And then John Barry heard something else, 0:27:12.530 --> 0:27:17.810 the unmistakable sound of sores on wood and metal yielding 0:27:17.850 --> 0:27:23.610 to flame. Someone knew they were down there, Someone was 0:27:23.690 --> 0:27:33.930 coming to get them. Giuseppe jan Tosca spent hours searching 0:27:33.970 --> 0:27:39.850 for Pasqualino, but to no avail. Maria Destacio had been found. 0:27:40.850 --> 0:27:43.170 She had been right in the path of the monstrous 0:27:43.210 --> 0:27:48.930 wave and had suffocated immediately, but her brother Tony had survived. 0:27:49.370 --> 0:27:51.890 He had been thrown against a lamppost and suffered a 0:27:51.930 --> 0:27:55.810 fractured skull, but a firefighter had managed to pull him 0:27:55.810 --> 0:28:00.330 from the morass before he drowned. Could Giuseppe's boy have 0:28:00.410 --> 0:28:04.530 been rescued had he been swept into the harbor, or 0:28:04.570 --> 0:28:07.810 perhaps he was trapped beneath the debris on the wharf. 0:28:09.450 --> 0:28:13.410 In broken English, to Seppi frantically questioned the dazed and 0:28:13.610 --> 0:28:17.890 injured along Commercial Street, but no one had seen a 0:28:17.930 --> 0:28:22.170 little boy in a red sweater. Firefighters had rallied to 0:28:22.210 --> 0:28:26.930 reach their trapped colleagues from Engine thirty one chopping and 0:28:26.970 --> 0:28:30.610 digging through the wreckage was perilous work. With every move 0:28:30.690 --> 0:28:34.810 they made, the remains of the building shifted around them. 0:28:35.050 --> 0:28:38.130 They found some of their fellows in time, but thirty 0:28:38.170 --> 0:28:42.370 four year old father of three, George Lahey was dragged 0:28:42.370 --> 0:28:48.850 from the wreckage dead. After three hours and as many 0:28:49.010 --> 0:28:53.810 injections of morphine into his back, John Barry heard a 0:28:53.850 --> 0:28:57.650 saw slicing away at the wood near his head. It 0:28:57.730 --> 0:29:03.650 was getting closer and closer, and then quite suddenly it stopped, 0:29:04.530 --> 0:29:08.090 and he felt the great weight beheaved from his back. 0:29:10.330 --> 0:29:14.570 The exhausted stonecutter was lifted onto a stretcher and rushed 0:29:14.610 --> 0:29:20.810 to hospital. When his stricken daughters reached the ward, they 0:29:20.810 --> 0:29:27.050 didn't recognize him. Their powerful father had vanished. In his 0:29:27.170 --> 0:29:35.690 place was a fragile old man. Arthur Jell visited the waterfront. 0:29:36.610 --> 0:29:41.450 He was aghast at the devastation, but kept calm. There 0:29:41.490 --> 0:29:45.770 would be a plausible explanation for the disaster, one that 0:29:45.930 --> 0:29:53.730 absolved Usia and himself of any responsibility. In the days 0:29:53.770 --> 0:29:59.370 that followed, the flood, clean up operation began. Businesses had 0:29:59.370 --> 0:30:03.010 been decimated and the harbor police picked all sorts of 0:30:03.010 --> 0:30:07.610 objects out of the water rolls of cloth, barrels of ale, 0:30:08.370 --> 0:30:13.530 tubs of lar. Firemen spread sand on the pavements and 0:30:13.690 --> 0:30:22.770 dispersed the tenacious molasses with jets of salt water. On 0:30:22.890 --> 0:30:28.810 January seventeenth, USIA issued a statement the company knew beyond 0:30:28.970 --> 0:30:33.330 question that the tank was not weak. This calamity was 0:30:33.370 --> 0:30:40.730 the work of an outside influence. It was another three 0:30:40.850 --> 0:30:45.370 days before Giuseppe and Maria Yantosca learned the fate of 0:30:45.410 --> 0:30:49.450 their son. Rescue workers pulled the body of a little 0:30:49.450 --> 0:30:53.610 boy in a red sweater from the wreckage. A railroad 0:30:53.690 --> 0:30:58.730 car carried fifty feet by the wave had crushed him 0:30:58.730 --> 0:31:03.450 into a wall. Giuseppe was asked to identify the child. 0:31:04.530 --> 0:31:11.170 He was slicked with molasses and his face was horribly disfigured. Weeping, 0:31:12.210 --> 0:31:18.610 Giuseppe lifted his red sweater and saw a second sweater underneath. 0:31:20.570 --> 0:31:25.250 His heart breaking, he gathered Pasqualino's tiny body in his 0:31:25.410 --> 0:31:34.330 arms and hugged him close. One hundred and fifty people 0:31:34.410 --> 0:31:38.210 were injured in the molasses flood, and twenty one people 0:31:38.370 --> 0:31:42.290 lost their lives. It was months before all the bodies 0:31:42.330 --> 0:31:47.890 were recovered. At the inquest into the disaster, Judge Wilfred 0:31:48.010 --> 0:31:53.450 Bolster rebuked USIA. He was also scathing about the Boston 0:31:53.530 --> 0:31:58.690 Buildings Department. The city had bypassed the proper permit procedures. 0:31:59.370 --> 0:32:01.770 No one in the building's department had been qualified to 0:32:01.810 --> 0:32:05.490 assess whether the steel structure was fit for purpose, and 0:32:05.530 --> 0:32:09.250 then accepted the paper design simply because it bore the 0:32:09.330 --> 0:32:15.010 name of a civil engineer. This single accident has cost 0:32:15.170 --> 0:32:19.410 more in material damage than all the supposed economies in 0:32:19.450 --> 0:32:25.490 the building department. Laws are cheap of passage, costly of enforcement. 0:32:26.250 --> 0:32:35.090 They do not execute themselves, Bolster declared. Despite Judge Bolster's rebuke, 0:32:35.530 --> 0:32:39.090 a grand jury found that there was insufficient evidence to 0:32:39.130 --> 0:32:43.690 return an indictment of manslaughter. The people of Boston were 0:32:43.730 --> 0:32:49.610 appalled USIA was getting away with it. A group of 0:32:49.690 --> 0:32:54.130 Bostonians prepared to sue the company. If nobody would go 0:32:54.170 --> 0:32:56.890 to jail for their carelessness, they could at least be 0:32:56.890 --> 0:33:00.690 made to pay a price, But USIA had some tricks 0:33:00.730 --> 0:33:07.010 up its sleeve. Today, it's generally believed that the Boston 0:33:07.130 --> 0:33:11.810 molasses disaster was the result of brittle fracture, the sudden 0:33:12.170 --> 0:33:16.010 catastrophic failure of the tank structure due to poor design 0:33:17.090 --> 0:33:21.090 to withstand the strains they would experience. The tank walls 0:33:21.130 --> 0:33:24.570 needed to be at least twice as thick. Over time, 0:33:24.850 --> 0:33:29.810 as the tank was repeatedly emptied and refilled, the steel fatigued. 0:33:30.530 --> 0:33:34.170 The fatal fracture probably began as a circular hatch at 0:33:34.170 --> 0:33:40.650 the base of the tank. Engineers balance efficiency, resource allocation, 0:33:41.050 --> 0:33:46.850 and safety. Arthur Jell, who oversaw the tank's rapid construction, 0:33:47.610 --> 0:33:52.330 was a skilled administrator, but he wasn't an engineer. His 0:33:52.490 --> 0:33:56.730 focus wasn't the complex harmony of function and long term 0:33:56.810 --> 0:34:03.130 public safety, but short term profit. USIA regarded the residence 0:34:03.250 --> 0:34:08.970 of Boston's North End not as vulnerable individuals worthy of dignity, 0:34:09.250 --> 0:34:13.770 as factors in a business model. The company had taken 0:34:13.890 --> 0:34:18.490 advantage of a power imbalance, knowing that the Italian Americans 0:34:18.530 --> 0:34:22.130 who lived near the harbor were unlikely to resist the 0:34:22.130 --> 0:34:27.930 building of the Malasses tank. USIA also knew that people 0:34:28.010 --> 0:34:32.210 were suspicious of Italian Americans, and in its next move, 0:34:32.810 --> 0:34:37.170 it sought to capitalize on that fear. In the wake 0:34:37.250 --> 0:34:42.690 of the disaster, one hundred and nineteen Bostonians sued USIA, 0:34:43.530 --> 0:34:47.250 arguing that the Great Vat of Malasses had been structurally 0:34:47.290 --> 0:34:54.490 deficient and built without proper safeguards. Former caretaker Isaac Gonzalez, 0:34:54.770 --> 0:34:57.890 who had warned half the gel about the tank and 0:34:57.970 --> 0:35:03.170