WEBVTT - Treacle Tears: The Boston Molasses Disaster 0:00:15.410 --> 0:00:22.370 Pushkin. Tim here with an exciting announcement about the Cautionary Club, 0:00:22.690 --> 0:00:26.850 our Patreon community for Cautionary Tales listeners. So many of 0:00:26.850 --> 0:00:30.210 you joined our live table read earlier this year that 0:00:30.330 --> 0:00:33.610 we're doing it again. Join me and I production team 0:00:33.770 --> 0:00:37.690 for a live reading of an unreleased episode about the 0:00:37.730 --> 0:00:43.410 people who almost invented the iPhone fifteen years early and 0:00:43.450 --> 0:00:46.770 the surprising reasons they failed. This will be a chance 0:00:46.850 --> 0:00:49.010 for you to see how the stories we tell are 0:00:49.010 --> 0:00:53.490 developed in real time and ask your burning questions about 0:00:53.490 --> 0:00:57.010 cautionary Tales. It's on the eighth of July at five 0:00:57.050 --> 0:01:01.090 pm UK or noon Eastern. If you join the Patreon 0:01:01.170 --> 0:01:03.770 before then, or if you're already a member, you'll get 0:01:03.770 --> 0:01:10.170 your exclusive invitation. Head to patreon dot com slash Cautionary Club. 0:01:10.450 --> 0:01:14.050 That's Patreon p A T R e O N dot 0:01:14.090 --> 0:01:24.810 com slash Cautionary Club. Boston, January nineteen nineteen. Giuseppe Yantosca 0:01:24.970 --> 0:01:28.370 stands at his kitchen window searching for his ten year 0:01:28.370 --> 0:01:32.610 old son. All sorts of people come and go in 0:01:32.650 --> 0:01:35.610 Boston's North End, and Giuseppe likes to keep a close 0:01:35.690 --> 0:01:40.050 eye on little Pasquale or Pasqualino as he's affectionately known. 0:01:40.090 --> 0:01:44.530 At home. Giuseppe doesn't speak much English. Like many of 0:01:44.570 --> 0:01:49.650 their neighbors. The Antoscas hail from southern Italy. They're very poor. 0:01:50.250 --> 0:01:53.570 Even with Giuseppe's shifts at the Boston and Maine Railroad, 0:01:54.130 --> 0:01:58.130 backbreaking work laying track, they struggle to make ends meet. 0:01:59.010 --> 0:02:01.050 Fresh milk and meat to rare. It is in the 0:02:01.090 --> 0:02:04.930 Antosca house and Giuseppe and his wife Maria worry about 0:02:04.930 --> 0:02:12.650 their six small children. Where is Pasqualino. Giuseppe surveys Commercial Street, 0:02:12.890 --> 0:02:16.170 the thoroughfare beneath his window that curves along the water. 0:02:16.890 --> 0:02:20.370 It's an unusually fine day from mid January, and the 0:02:20.450 --> 0:02:24.690 harbour is bustling. Fishermen hurry to their lunch, a plate 0:02:24.730 --> 0:02:28.730 of spaghetti at home, perhaps, or a pie from Partial's bakery. 0:02:29.490 --> 0:02:33.450 Dock workers shout as they unload shipping crates and horse 0:02:33.530 --> 0:02:39.050 drawn wagons hauling beer barrels mingle with peddler's carts. Motorized 0:02:39.090 --> 0:02:42.570 trucks rattle to and from the factories that ring the 0:02:42.650 --> 0:02:48.490 north end. Giuseppe scans the elevated railroad that swoops above 0:02:48.570 --> 0:02:53.170 Commercial Street and the freight trains directly beneath it. Finally 0:02:53.770 --> 0:02:58.210 he traces the hulking storage tank that dominates the wharf. 0:02:58.930 --> 0:03:02.810 His eyes flick to a tiny figure clad in red 0:03:03.410 --> 0:03:06.730 and crouching in the shadow of the high steel walls. 0:03:07.850 --> 0:03:14.650 Pasqualino Giuseppe breathes a sigh of relief. Down on the wharf, 0:03:15.010 --> 0:03:19.010 Pasquale An Tosca, and his friends Tony and Maria Destacio 0:03:19.330 --> 0:03:24.690 are huddling beside the enormous storage tank, fifty feet high 0:03:24.730 --> 0:03:29.850 and ninety feet wide. Its grumbles and shudders, and its sweet, 0:03:30.090 --> 0:03:34.770 earthy scent are familiar to them. The tank isn't designed 0:03:34.770 --> 0:03:40.050 to store diesel or grain, but of all things, a thick, 0:03:40.890 --> 0:03:47.530 dark sugary liquid and a glasses. It pools around the 0:03:47.570 --> 0:03:51.050 base of the tank, and the children like to play there, 0:03:51.610 --> 0:03:56.410 dodging stern railroad workers to scoop the sticky liquid into 0:03:56.450 --> 0:04:02.130 their pails and hurrying home with their syrupy treasure. But 0:04:02.250 --> 0:04:06.610 today Pasqualino doesn't feel like playing. He knows his father's 0:04:06.650 --> 0:04:12.450 watching him. He's also very hot beneath his bright red knitwear. 0:04:12.890 --> 0:04:16.450 It's the second sweater his mother insisted he wear that morning. 0:04:17.370 --> 0:04:20.690 She fears him catching a cold. But the day's mild 0:04:20.770 --> 0:04:23.090 and the extra bowlk also slows him down. As he 0:04:23.130 --> 0:04:30.050 gathers firewood, the tank groans, which isn't unusual. A fresh 0:04:30.170 --> 0:04:34.050 load of the sugary substance has recently arrived from the Caribbean. 0:04:35.130 --> 0:04:41.290 Pasqualino looks up at the massive container fifty foot streams 0:04:41.410 --> 0:04:47.410 of molasses seep down its side in long, treakily tears. 0:04:49.130 --> 0:05:16.650 I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales. Arthur P. 0:05:16.970 --> 0:05:21.770 Gell had his work cut out. It was late nineteen fourteen, 0:05:22.010 --> 0:05:26.210 and had been tasked with building an enormous molasses container 0:05:26.490 --> 0:05:32.690 near Cambridge, Massachusetts. Gell was assistant treasurer at the Purity 0:05:32.810 --> 0:05:38.930 Distilling Company, part of United States Industrial Alcohol or USIA. 0:05:39.890 --> 0:05:45.290 USIA processed molasses into alcohol for munitions like dynamite and 0:05:45.410 --> 0:05:50.290 smokeless powder, so when Europe went to war in nineteen fourteen, 0:05:51.050 --> 0:05:55.490 the company had begun boosting production. Its plant in Cambridge 0:05:55.530 --> 0:05:58.730 was one of the largest in the country, but USIA 0:05:59.010 --> 0:06:02.570 struggled to keep up with demand. It didn't have its 0:06:02.610 --> 0:06:06.570 own storage facility, so it had to source its molasses 0:06:06.650 --> 0:06:10.010 from a broker in South Boston rather than directly from 0:06:10.010 --> 0:06:17.010 the Caribbean. This in turn ate into profits to truly 0:06:17.130 --> 0:06:21.690 make hay while the sun Shone, Usia needed its own tank, 0:06:22.250 --> 0:06:25.410 one that would be up and running by December thirty first, 0:06:25.730 --> 0:06:31.250 nineteen fifteen, and it was decided that reliable, efficient Arthur 0:06:31.410 --> 0:06:36.690 Jell was the man for the job. The deadline was 0:06:36.850 --> 0:06:41.850 virtually impossible, but Gell's bosses had hinted that if he succeeded, 0:06:42.370 --> 0:06:45.930 a New York City promotion was on the cards. He 0:06:46.050 --> 0:06:53.090 was determined to give it his best shot. As Stephen 0:06:53.170 --> 0:06:57.450 Pulio explains in his book Dark Tide, Gell had spent 0:06:57.530 --> 0:07:01.690 his professional life in a range of clerical positions. An 0:07:01.730 --> 0:07:05.890 experienced administrator, he was confident that he knew the right people. 0:07:06.570 --> 0:07:11.050 He consulted other tank manufacturers about the appropriate factor of 0:07:11.130 --> 0:07:14.170 safety for a container like this one, and ordered steel 0:07:14.250 --> 0:07:18.930 plates to form the sides of the cylindrical structure. He 0:07:19.010 --> 0:07:23.010 also negotiated a lease for the perfect spot in Boston's 0:07:23.050 --> 0:07:28.490 North End. Here, steamships from the Caribbean could discharge the molasses, 0:07:28.890 --> 0:07:31.370 and the sugary substance could then travel on to the 0:07:31.410 --> 0:07:37.250 Cambridge plant by railcar. Sure the area was densely populated, 0:07:37.410 --> 0:07:40.330 and there was a children's playground right next to the 0:07:40.370 --> 0:07:44.050 proposed tank site, but Jell knew that the residents of 0:07:44.090 --> 0:07:49.650 the North End were unlikely to resist the structure. Many 0:07:49.650 --> 0:07:53.330 of them were poor immigrants from Italy's south. They didn't 0:07:53.330 --> 0:07:57.050 speak English and kept to their own tight enclave. Their 0:07:57.090 --> 0:08:03.650 political participation was scant. All the same, lease negotiations were slow. 0:08:04.370 --> 0:08:07.770 By the time Gell had secured the location, it was 0:08:07.850 --> 0:08:13.370 September nineteen ten, fifteen, and the clock was ticking. Ever resourceful, 0:08:13.570 --> 0:08:16.970 he installed electric lighting at the wharf so that the 0:08:17.010 --> 0:08:20.890 construction crew could work through the night. But when a 0:08:21.010 --> 0:08:27.370 laborer fell inside the empty tank, Gell lost more time, 0:08:28.210 --> 0:08:32.490 so traumatized with the other workers by the dying man's screams, 0:08:34.330 --> 0:08:38.690 then a superstorm blasted Boston and he lost a further 0:08:38.770 --> 0:08:47.050 two days. Gell couldn't afford any more embarrassing setbacks or expenses. 0:08:47.970 --> 0:08:51.010 When the time came to test the tank for leaks, 0:08:51.690 --> 0:08:54.330 he knew that they could only fill the massive structure 0:08:54.570 --> 0:08:58.330 by tapping into the municipal water supply. This would be 0:08:58.490 --> 0:09:02.250 time consuming and costly, so he came up with a solution. 0:09:03.250 --> 0:09:06.530 The crew ran six inches of water into the bottom 0:09:06.530 --> 0:09:09.290 of the container to just above the first joint. At 0:09:09.290 --> 0:09:12.850 its base if the first joint didn't leak right with 0:09:12.970 --> 0:09:17.810 the rest of them. The tank held its six inches 0:09:17.890 --> 0:09:23.730 of water, and gel announced that it was ready. It 0:09:23.810 --> 0:09:32.930 was late December nineteen fifteen. He had met his impossible deadline. 0:09:34.210 --> 0:09:40.090 Business boomed. From nineteen fourteen to nineteen sixteen, USIA's net 0:09:40.130 --> 0:09:46.370 profit increased nearly ninefold. The investors were thrilled. In April 0:09:46.450 --> 0:09:51.170 nineteen seventeen, the US declared war on Germany, and Gell 0:09:51.410 --> 0:09:54.250 was ready to show the managers in New York that 0:09:54.410 --> 0:10:00.530 Boston could rise to the challenge. That month, a munitions 0:10:00.570 --> 0:10:07.210 factory in Pennsylvania was bombed, the work of foreign employees 0:10:07.290 --> 0:10:12.050 who were angry about the war. Italian anarchists were said 0:10:12.050 --> 0:10:17.450 to be behind other similar bombings. Jell took note and 0:10:17.730 --> 0:10:23.290 increased security at the Boston Tank. A couple of weeks later, 0:10:23.690 --> 0:10:29.090 Gell ran into another complication. A man called Isaac Gonzales 0:10:29.330 --> 0:10:35.170 burst into his Cambridge office uninvited and unapproved. Gonzales was 0:10:35.250 --> 0:10:40.450 also a USIA employee, the assistant to the caretaker at 0:10:40.450 --> 0:10:43.930 the Boston Tank, and he was raving about some leaks 0:10:43.970 --> 0:10:48.930 in the structure. Apparently, the tank oozed gallons of molasses 0:10:49.090 --> 0:10:53.410 on to the wharf. Everyone had noticed, and children even 0:10:53.530 --> 0:10:57.890 liked to play with it. Gonzales shoved tiny pieces of 0:10:57.970 --> 0:11:02.650 steel into Gell's hands and said that rusty flex dropped 0:11:02.690 --> 0:11:07.050 into his hair each time he entered the tank. Gell 0:11:07.170 --> 0:11:11.730 did his best to keep calm. This man was clearly paranoid, 0:11:12.330 --> 0:11:15.730 even obsessed. Molasses had a life of its own, and 0:11:15.810 --> 0:11:19.810 leaks were normal, especially in a relatively new structure, and 0:11:20.010 --> 0:11:24.170 especially after a fresh shipment. Plus, Gel had had the 0:11:24.210 --> 0:11:28.330 tank resealed, so he knew it was being maintained. He 0:11:28.410 --> 0:11:31.730 told Gonzales that he needed to do a better job 0:11:31.810 --> 0:11:36.050 of keeping the neighborhood children away from company property. That 0:11:36.090 --> 0:11:40.930 would shut him up. He thought it didn't shut him up. Next, 0:11:41.170 --> 0:11:44.290 Gonzales revealed he had been sleeping at the tank so 0:11:44.330 --> 0:11:48.130 that he could sound the alarm should it start to fall. 0:11:49.410 --> 0:11:55.330 Gell was disturbed. Company employees should be returning home after work. 0:11:56.130 --> 0:11:59.970 The tank still stands. The tank will stand, he snapped. 0:12:00.650 --> 0:12:03.130 Then he sent the man on his way, promising to 0:12:03.210 --> 0:12:07.330 fire him if he breathed another word of this nonsense. Yes, 0:12:07.570 --> 0:12:12.170 Arthur Jell was a reliable, efficient man. Nothing would hinder 0:12:12.170 --> 0:12:16.930 productivity on his watch. Not saboteurs with bombs, and certainly 0:12:16.970 --> 0:12:24.770 not some jumped up manual laborer Isaac Gonzales returned to 0:12:24.810 --> 0:12:31.210 his post through nineteen seventeen and nineteen eighteen. Other Bostonians 0:12:31.290 --> 0:12:34.530 muttered to him about the tank. The men of Engine 0:12:34.690 --> 0:12:39.090 thirty one firehouse, which stood just along the wharf, commented 0:12:39.130 --> 0:12:43.090 on the obvious leaks that streaked its sides and the 0:12:43.170 --> 0:12:48.410 strange sounds it made. When another local worker pressed his 0:12:48.530 --> 0:12:51.610 back against the tank, he told Isaac it felt as 0:12:51.650 --> 0:12:56.610 though the steel walls were moving, pulsing in and out 0:12:56.770 --> 0:13:02.690 with the flow of the liquid inside. Gonzales continued his 0:13:02.930 --> 0:13:07.610 nighttime vigil in secret. Of course, he knew he couldn't 0:13:07.650 --> 0:13:11.890 speak to jail again, but in nineteen eighteen he complained 0:13:11.930 --> 0:13:16.490 to his superintendent, William White, he waited to see if 0:13:16.490 --> 0:13:22.170 his bosses would do anything. They did. In August, a 0:13:22.330 --> 0:13:28.610 crew arrived at the tank, paint in hand. Gel had 0:13:28.770 --> 0:13:32.890 ordered them to dare the gray steel walls with a 0:13:33.010 --> 0:13:40.810 dark red brown, the color of molasses. Gonzales had had enough. 0:13:41.530 --> 0:13:47.970 He quit his job and joined the army. Cautionary tales 0:13:48.210 --> 0:14:02.730 will return. Usia had done well out of the war 0:14:02.810 --> 0:14:06.490 in Europe, but when the armistice was signed in November 0:14:06.610 --> 0:14:11.850 nineteen eighteen, it faced a steep fall in profits. Assistant 0:14:12.010 --> 0:14:16.890 Treasurer Arthur jel knew all too well that the investors 0:14:17.050 --> 0:14:21.210 wouldn't be happy. But all was not lost. As the 0:14:21.330 --> 0:14:26.290 United States looked to ratify the eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution, 0:14:27.210 --> 0:14:33.770 Usia spotted a slim window of opportunity. The prohibition of 0:14:33.850 --> 0:14:39.570 the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors wouldn't actually 0:14:39.650 --> 0:14:44.050 go into effect for another year, during which time there 0:14:44.050 --> 0:14:49.570 would surely be a spike in alcohol sales. Usia resolved 0:14:49.570 --> 0:14:53.810 to repurpose its distilleries for the liquor industry. It would 0:14:53.850 --> 0:14:59.650 once again make hay while the sun shone. On January 0:14:59.650 --> 0:15:05.330 the twelfth, nineteen nineteen, a ship cruised into Boston Harbor 0:15:05.770 --> 0:15:12.890 with one point three million gallons of molasses. The dark, 0:15:13.250 --> 0:15:17.770 viscous liquid had been warmed to facilitate its transfer, and 0:15:17.850 --> 0:15:22.010 it flowed easily into the tank. By next morning, the 0:15:22.050 --> 0:15:26.410 container was very nearly full. It held two point three 0:15:26.890 --> 0:15:31.730 million gallons of the sticky substance, weighing roughly twenty six 0:15:32.050 --> 0:15:37.730 million pounds. The weather in Boston had been bitterly cold, 0:15:38.210 --> 0:15:42.650 and when the warm, free flowing molasses topped up the colder, 0:15:43.010 --> 0:15:49.370 thicker liquid already in the tank, something unexpected happened. The 0:15:49.410 --> 0:15:54.810 introduction of all that additional heat accelerated a fermentation process 0:15:55.250 --> 0:16:00.570 producing carbon dioxide. The gas had nowhere to go, and 0:16:00.650 --> 0:16:04.450 it began to push against the steel walls of the tank. 0:16:06.530 --> 0:16:10.930 USIA's only responsibility, as the company saw it, was to 0:16:11.010 --> 0:16:15.890 maximize profit. Somehow, that always seemed to mean profit now 0:16:16.050 --> 0:16:21.970 rather than profit later, and so Arthur Gel prioritized speed, 0:16:22.530 --> 0:16:30.810 growth and quarterly returns. If that sounds familiar, it could 0:16:30.810 --> 0:16:35.210 be because Silicon Valley has become famous or infamous for 0:16:35.330 --> 0:16:40.810 a similar corporate logic. Facebook's motto was move fast and 0:16:40.890 --> 0:16:45.210 Break things, and it became the tech world's battle cry. 0:16:46.410 --> 0:16:50.730 A move fast and break things culture can encourage innovation 0:16:51.210 --> 0:16:56.170 and banish fear of mistakes. After all, errors are path 0:16:56.210 --> 0:17:00.410 of the course, especially when you're making something new. And 0:17:00.450 --> 0:17:05.170 while slow and steady can bring small, consistent benefits to 0:17:05.210 --> 0:17:09.330 a business, throwing caution to the wind might gener rate 0:17:09.530 --> 0:17:16.890 a single, massive payoff. But when a corporation values efficiency 0:17:17.010 --> 0:17:21.730 and growth above all else, there can be other consequences. 0:17:22.650 --> 0:17:28.690 Environmental costs, community welfare and workers' rights fall by the wayside, 0:17:29.330 --> 0:17:35.450 safeguards are eroded, accountability dissolves, and harm is written off 0:17:36.170 --> 0:17:44.570 as a cost of doing business. January fifteenth, nineteen nineteen, 0:17:45.050 --> 0:17:49.450 is a cloudy day in Boston, but unusually mild. The 0:17:49.490 --> 0:17:52.770 weather has been punishingly cold of late, and the people 0:17:52.850 --> 0:17:56.130 of the North End take advantage of the slight thaw. 0:17:57.010 --> 0:18:01.010 At lunchtime, the harbor is a buzz. Workers eat their 0:18:01.090 --> 0:18:05.330 lunch on front steps and chatter on sidewalks. The mood 0:18:05.810 --> 0:18:11.970 is mellow. Tank Superintendant William White has just received a 0:18:12.010 --> 0:18:15.170 phone call from his wife. She has her eye on 0:18:15.330 --> 0:18:18.650 new dress and wants to go shopping together. It'll be 0:18:18.690 --> 0:18:21.570 a quiet work day now that the new load of 0:18:21.690 --> 0:18:26.370 molasses has been safely delivered, and White sees no reason 0:18:26.730 --> 0:18:32.530 not to spoil her. Just before midday, he leaves his post. 0:18:34.330 --> 0:18:38.010 If he had lingered, he might have noticed Pasqualeis and 0:18:38.170 --> 0:18:42.290 Tosca and the Dastasio children sneaking onto the wharf to 0:18:42.330 --> 0:18:49.210 collect firewood. Instead, a railroad worker begins scolding Maria Dastasio. 0:18:49.970 --> 0:18:53.610 You shouldn't be here, he chides, this isn't a playground. 0:18:55.770 --> 0:18:58.730 Just along the wharf. The men of the Engine thirty 0:18:58.770 --> 0:19:03.210 one Firehouse a playing whist on their lunch break, smoking 0:19:03.250 --> 0:19:07.570 their pipes and mocking bay Ruth's ridiculous demands for a 0:19:07.690 --> 0:19:11.090 pay rise. The baseball star would never survive on a 0:19:11.130 --> 0:19:16.170 firefighter's wage, they scoff. Fifty six year old John Barry, 0:19:16.770 --> 0:19:20.650 a stonecutter for the City of Boston Street Department, has 0:19:20.770 --> 0:19:24.890 joined them from his workshop next door. Burly and muscular, 0:19:25.370 --> 0:19:29.850 Barry is physically formidable, but his friends at the firehouse 0:19:30.010 --> 0:19:33.450 know that his ten children are never far from his thoughts. 0:19:36.090 --> 0:19:40.490 What was that It sounded like thunder? One of the 0:19:40.530 --> 0:19:45.890 firefighters scrambles to a window. His face darkens with fear. 0:19:46.730 --> 0:19:51.610 Oh my god, he cries. Run at his kitchen window. 0:19:51.890 --> 0:19:56.610 Giuseppe yan Tosca jumps back in horror. He's been following 0:19:56.650 --> 0:20:01.250 his Pasqualino as he gathers firewood, tracing that bright red 0:20:01.290 --> 0:20:05.290 sweater as it bobs along the gray wharf. But something 0:20:05.290 --> 0:20:10.010 has just swallowed the little boy, the kind of dark, 0:20:10.410 --> 0:20:17.450 gleaming wave pushing forwards, tearing towards Commercial Street. Kitchen growls 0:20:17.490 --> 0:20:20.610 and shakes, and before he can move, Giuseppe's been thrown 0:20:20.650 --> 0:20:26.850 to the floor. He hits his head everything goes back. 0:20:29.730 --> 0:20:34.210 At a call box on Commercial Street, policeman Frank McManus 0:20:34.370 --> 0:20:39.730 is making a routine report to headquarters. That chilling sound 0:20:41.330 --> 0:20:46.730 somewhere between a thunderclap sickening scrape of metal, makes him 0:20:46.770 --> 0:20:52.610 turn receiver still to his mouth. He can't quite believe 0:20:52.690 --> 0:20:55.810 what he's seeing, but he manages to utter a few 0:20:56.050 --> 0:20:58.050 shocked words to the dispatcher. 0:20:58.930 --> 0:21:02.650 Send all available rescue vehicles and personnel. Immediately. There's a 0:21:02.810 --> 0:21:09.450 wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street. What follows is 0:21:09.490 --> 0:21:14.930 the stuff of nightmares. The tank has burst clean open 0:21:15.410 --> 0:21:21.210 rid its screaming through the air like shrapnels. A worker 0:21:21.610 --> 0:21:25.370 trapped in the railroad freight office saw the tank's steel 0:21:25.530 --> 0:21:31.890 walls fly into other buildings, which crumpled like egg. Two 0:21:31.930 --> 0:21:36.850 point three million gallons of molasses has rushed onto the wharf, 0:21:37.410 --> 0:21:42.490 a syruped tsunami, thirty five feet high, one hundred and 0:21:42.530 --> 0:21:46.690 sixty feet wide, and traveling at thirty five miles per hour. 0:21:47.450 --> 0:21:51.410 It snuffs out the daylight and wrenches the fire house 0:21:51.450 --> 0:21:59.130 from its foundations on Commercial Street. 0:21:59.730 --> 0:22:04.170 In the dining room of his second floor apartment, Robert Burnette, 0:22:04.530 --> 0:22:08.050 he is a swish like a brushing of wind. A 0:22:08.170 --> 0:22:11.650 shadow falls across the room, and he hurries to the window. 0:22:12.730 --> 0:22:16.810 A great black wave is bearing down on the house. 0:22:18.330 --> 0:22:21.570 Burnett snatches at his front door that the wave is 0:22:21.650 --> 0:22:25.330 already surging up the stairs in the hallway. He slams 0:22:25.370 --> 0:22:29.090 the door and runs for the roof. The wall of 0:22:29.170 --> 0:22:35.850 molasses rebounds off buildings, shattering windows and pulverizing brickwork. It 0:22:36.050 --> 0:22:40.450 twists and snaps the steel girders of an elevated railroad, 0:22:40.850 --> 0:22:45.690 obliterating the track for more than one hundred feet. Horses, carts, 0:22:45.690 --> 0:22:50.330 and motor trucks are overturned, children and adults vanish in 0:22:50.450 --> 0:23:03.170 a treatily deluge. Stonecutter John Barry lies in total darkness, 0:23:03.770 --> 0:23:09.410 wood and metal crushing his back its agony. He can 0:23:09.450 --> 0:23:14.530 barely breathe. When the wave of molasses ripped the firehouse 0:23:14.570 --> 0:23:19.490 off its foundations, the building collapse and the treacherous syrup 0:23:19.930 --> 0:23:26.170 seeped through the debris. Barry is trapped pinned, face down, 0:23:26.930 --> 0:23:32.250 one cheek grinding into molasses. Only his left arm is free, 0:23:32.650 --> 0:23:35.890 and he clears the vial liquid from his face as 0:23:35.930 --> 0:23:42.610 best he can. Barry tries to call out to scream, 0:23:42.930 --> 0:23:47.450 but his voice is thin and reading, he imagines foul 0:23:47.730 --> 0:23:52.770 rats scuttling over his body, burrowing their yellow teeth into 0:23:52.770 --> 0:23:58.290 his flesh. I'm going to die here, he thinks. He 0:23:58.410 --> 0:24:08.650 wonders what will become of his ten children. On his 0:24:08.730 --> 0:24:13.650 kitchen floor, Giuseppe and Tosca comes too. His wife Maria 0:24:13.810 --> 0:24:16.530 is crying in the corner of the room. One of 0:24:16.570 --> 0:24:23.530 their daughters is comforting her bruised. Stunned, Giuseppe pulls himself 0:24:23.650 --> 0:24:27.890 up and goes shakily to the front door. He will 0:24:27.930 --> 0:24:34.970 find Pasqualino. If it kills him. Cautionary tales will be 0:24:35.010 --> 0:24:46.570 back shortly. In the first moments of the disaster, the 0:24:46.610 --> 0:24:51.450 molasses flow through the streets of Boston like water, or 0:24:51.530 --> 0:24:56.610 perhaps like ketchup being jiggled out of a bottle. Like ketchup, 0:24:56.810 --> 0:25:01.650 molasses flows freely when being violently shaken and exploding out 0:25:01.690 --> 0:25:05.170 of a high pressure tank is certainly a violent movement, 0:25:06.290 --> 0:25:12.490 but when molasses cools, it thickens. On January fifteenth, the 0:25:12.530 --> 0:25:15.930 temperature in Boston had climbed a little, but the winter 0:25:16.050 --> 0:25:20.450 air was still much cooler than the syrupy liquid, and 0:25:20.530 --> 0:25:23.410 as it flowed out of the tank and through the streets, 0:25:23.970 --> 0:25:31.730 it began to slow and congeal like quicksand trapped its victims. 0:25:32.330 --> 0:25:37.490 As the Boston Post explained, snared in its flood was 0:25:37.530 --> 0:25:42.850 to be stifled. Once it smeared ahead human or animal. 0:25:43.330 --> 0:25:47.370 There was no coughing off the sticky mass. To attempt 0:25:47.410 --> 0:25:49.530 to wipe it with hands was to make it worse. 0:25:50.010 --> 0:25:55.490 It plugged the nostrils almost air tight. Horses thrashed around 0:25:55.570 --> 0:26:00.810 in the glooy mass like so many flies on sticky flypaper. 0:26:02.130 --> 0:26:07.770 They couldn't be freed and were shot dead. At a 0:26:07.810 --> 0:26:13.610 local relief station, nurses and orderlies streaked with molasses treated 0:26:13.650 --> 0:26:18.850 the injured. They carried patients on sticky stretchers, cutaway clothing, 0:26:19.250 --> 0:26:24.490 and cleaned gaping wounds. Anguished Bostonians clamored to know if 0:26:24.490 --> 0:26:29.250 their missing relatives were there. A lucky few were relatively unscathed. 0:26:30.210 --> 0:26:33.450 Five year old Albert Janschi had been picked up by 0:26:33.450 --> 0:26:37.210 the wave and drenched in molasses, but was miraculously unhurt. 0:26:37.850 --> 0:26:40.290 Once it had been cleaned up and had something to eat, 0:26:40.810 --> 0:26:45.290 he was allowed to return home. Others were taken straight 0:26:45.370 --> 0:26:54.130 to the local morgue. In the ruins of the firehouse, 0:26:54.890 --> 0:27:01.050 John Barry's back seared with pain despite his incredible strength, 0:27:01.730 --> 0:27:06.090 he couldn't move. He couldn't see anything either. It was 0:27:06.250 --> 0:27:11.130 pitch black, but he could hear something. With the shred 0:27:11.210 --> 0:27:16.010 of energy he had left, he strained his ears. There 0:27:16.050 --> 0:27:21.050 it was again a man's voice. He wasn't alone down here. 0:27:21.970 --> 0:27:26.090 His friends were imprisoned with him in the debris. And 0:27:26.130 --> 0:27:31.370 then John Barry heard something else, the unmistakable sound of 0:27:31.530 --> 0:27:37.330 sores on wood and metal yielding to flame. Someone knew 0:27:37.410 --> 0:27:47.290 they were down there, Someone was coming to get them. 0:27:47.490 --> 0:27:52.730 Giuseppe jan Tosca spent hours searching for Pasqualino, but to 0:27:52.770 --> 0:27:58.130 no avail. Maria Destacio had been found. She had been 0:27:58.210 --> 0:28:01.050 right in the path of the monstrous wave and had 0:28:01.090 --> 0:28:06.690 suffocated immediately, but her brother Tony had survived. Had been 0:28:06.770 --> 0:28:09.770 thrown against a lamppost and suffered a frac should skull, 0:28:10.450 --> 0:28:13.010 but a firefighter had managed to pull him from the 0:28:13.050 --> 0:28:18.010 morass before he drowned. Could Guiseppe's boy have been rescued 0:28:18.810 --> 0:28:22.050 had he been swept into the harbor, or perhaps he 0:28:22.170 --> 0:28:27.530 was trapped beneath the debris on the wharf. In broken English, 0:28:27.610 --> 0:28:32.290 Touseeppe frantically questioned the dazed and injured along Commercial Street, 0:28:33.370 --> 0:28:35.610 but no one had seen a little boy in a 0:28:35.650 --> 0:28:40.930 red sweater. Firefighters had rallied to reach their trapped colleagues 0:28:40.930 --> 0:28:45.050 from Engine thirty one. Chopping and digging through the wreckage 0:28:45.170 --> 0:28:49.210 was perilous work. With every move they made, the remains 0:28:49.250 --> 0:28:52.730 of the building shifted around them. They found some of 0:28:52.770 --> 0:28:56.330 their fellows in time, but thirty four year old father 0:28:56.450 --> 0:29:00.650 of three, George Lahey was dragged from the wreckage dead. 0:29:03.570 --> 0:29:07.930 After three hours and as many injections of morphine into 0:29:07.970 --> 0:29:12.530 his back, John Barry heard a saw slicing away at 0:29:12.570 --> 0:29:16.450 the wood near his head. It was getting closer and closer, 0:29:17.450 --> 0:29:22.290 and then quite suddenly it stopped, and he felt the 0:29:22.410 --> 0:29:29.210 great weight beheaved from his back. The exhausted stonecutter was 0:29:29.250 --> 0:29:34.730 lifted onto a stretcher and rushed to hospital. When his 0:29:34.850 --> 0:29:39.930 stricken daughters reached the ward, they didn't recognize him. Their 0:29:40.170 --> 0:29:46.210 powerful father had vanished. In his place was a fragile 0:29:46.250 --> 0:29:54.770 old man. Arthur Jell visited the waterfront. He was aghast 0:29:54.810 --> 0:29:59.090 at the devastation, but kept calm. There would be a 0:29:59.330 --> 0:30:04.650 plausible explanation for the disaster, one that absolved Usia and 0:30:04.770 --> 0:30:11.450 himself of any responsibility. In the days that followed, the 0:30:11.530 --> 0:30:17.810 flood clean up operation began. Businesses had been decimated, and 0:30:17.890 --> 0:30:20.730 the harbor police picked all sorts of objects out of 0:30:20.770 --> 0:30:26.210 the water, rolls of cloth, barrels of ale, tubs of lard. 0:30:27.650 --> 0:30:32.250 Firemen spread sand on the pavements and dispersed the tenacious 0:30:32.330 --> 0:30:42.170 molasses with jets of salt water. On January seventeenth, USIA 0:30:42.490 --> 0:30:46.890 issued a statement the company knew beyond question that the 0:30:46.930 --> 0:30:50.770 tank was not weak. This calamity was the work of 0:30:50.810 --> 0:30:59.450 an outside influence. It was another three days before Giuseppe 0:30:59.490 --> 0:31:04.450 and Maria Jantosca learned the fate of their son. Rescue 0:31:04.490 --> 0:31:06.930 workers pulled the body of a little boy in a 0:31:06.970 --> 0:31:12.610 red sweater from the wreckage. A railroad car carried fifty 0:31:12.730 --> 0:31:16.370 feet by the wave had crushed him into a wall. 0:31:17.570 --> 0:31:22.610 Giuseppe was asked to identify the child. He was slicked 0:31:22.810 --> 0:31:29.650 with molasses and his face was horribly disfigured. Weeping, Giuseppe 0:31:29.810 --> 0:31:35.530 lifted his red sweater and saw a second sweater underneath. 0:31:37.490 --> 0:31:42.170 His heart breaking, he gathered Pasqualino's tiny body in his 0:31:42.330 --> 0:31:51.250 arms and hugged him close. One hundred and fifty people 0:31:51.330 --> 0:31:55.130 were injured in the molasses flood, and twenty one people 0:31:55.290 --> 0:31:59.210 lost their lives. It was months before all the bodies 0:31:59.250 --> 0:32:04.810 were recovered. At the inquest into the disaster, Judge Wilfred 0:32:04.930 --> 0:32:09.890 Bolster rebuked USIA, but he was also scared about the 0:32:09.930 --> 0:32:15.610 Boston Buildings Department. The city had bypassed the proper permit procedures. 0:32:16.290 --> 0:32:18.690 No one in the building's department had been qualified to 0:32:18.730 --> 0:32:22.370 assess whether the steel structure was fit for purpose, and 0:32:22.490 --> 0:32:26.130 then accepted the paper design simply because it bore the 0:32:26.210 --> 0:32:31.930 name of a civil engineer. This single accident has cost 0:32:32.090 --> 0:32:36.370 more in material damage than all the supposed economies in 0:32:36.370 --> 0:32:42.410 the building department. Laws are cheap of passage, costly of enforcement. 0:32:43.170 --> 0:32:52.010 They do not execute themselves, Bolster declared. Despite Judge Bolster's rebuke, 0:32:52.450 --> 0:32:56.010 a grand jury found that there was insufficient evidence to 0:32:56.050 --> 0:33:00.610 return an indictment of manslaughter. The people of Boston were 0:33:00.650 --> 0:33:06.530 appalled USIA was getting away with it. A group of 0:33:06.610 --> 0:33:11.050 Bostonians prepared to sue the company. If nobody would go 0:33:11.090 --> 0:33:13.810 to jail for their carelessness, they could at least be 0:33:13.850 --> 0:33:17.610 made to pay a price, But USIA had some tricks 0:33:17.650 --> 0:33:23.930 up its sleeve. Today, it's generally believed that the Boston 0:33:24.050 --> 0:33:28.730 molasses disaster was the result of brittle fracture, the sudden 0:33:29.090 --> 0:33:32.930 catastrophic failure of the tank structure due to poor design. 0:33:34.010 --> 0:33:38.010 To withstand the strains they would experience, the tank walls 0:33:38.050 --> 0:33:41.490 needed to be at least twice as thick. Over time, 0:33:41.770 --> 0:33:46.730 as the tank was repeatedly emptied and refilled, the steel fatigued. 0:33:47.450 --> 0:33:51.090 The fatal fracture probably began as a circular hatch at 0:33:51.090 --> 0:33:57.570 the base of the tank. Engineers balance efficiency, resource allocation, 0:33:57.970 --> 0:34:03.770 and safety. Arthur Jell, who oversaw the tank's rapid construction, 0:34:04.530 --> 0:34:09.290 was a skilled administrator, but he wasn't an engineer. His 0:34:09.410 --> 0:34:13.650 focus wasn't the complex harmony of function and long term 0:34:13.730 --> 0:34:20.170 public safety, but short term profit. USIA regarded the residents 0:34:20.210 --> 0:34:25.290 of Boston's North End not as vulnerable individuals worthy of dignity, 0:34:25.930 --> 0:34:30.130 but as factors in a business model. The company had 0:34:30.210 --> 0:34:34.770 taken advantage of a power imbalance, knowing that the Italian 0:34:34.770 --> 0:34:38.770 Americans who lived near the harbor were unlikely to resist 0:34:38.930 --> 0:34:44.370 the building of the Malasses tank. USIA also knew that 0:34:44.450 --> 0:34:49.130 people were suspicious of Italian Americans, and in its next move, 0:34:49.730 --> 0:34:54.090 it sought to capitalize on that fear. In the wake 0:34:54.170 --> 0:34:59.650