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Causes and Effects In this story, a terrible disaster strikes a neighborhood in Boston. As you read, look for what caused this disaster and how it affected the neighborhood.

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Narrative Nonfiction

Day Of DiSaStEr

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95 years ago, a strange and terrible disaster struck Boston: A killer wave of molasses crashed through a crowded neighborhood. The wave was 15 feet tall, traveling at 35 miles per hour. It destroyed everything in its path and killed 21 people.

How did this happen? And who was to blame?

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it was a bright January day in 1919. anthony di stasio, age 8, hurried down a sidewalk in Boston’s north End. the streets were jammed with motorcars and horse-drawn wagons. after weeks of freezing cold, the day was warm and sunny. anthony’s tattered coat flapped open as he hurried toward the small apartment he shared with his parents and three sisters.

like most people in this poor Boston

neighborhood, the di stasios had come from southern italy. they had hoped for a better life in the u.s.

what they found was hardship. anthony’s dad worked long hours on the waterfront. his mom struggled to make their two-room apartment into a decent home. she chased away cockroaches. she masked the stink of trash and horse manure that rose up from the streets.

Life was tough for the people of the North End. And the past two years had been especially hard—not just for them, but for most Americans.

World War I had been raging in Europe. Five million American soldiers had joined the fierce fight to defeat Germany. As the war ended, a new horror hit the world: the influenza epidemic of 1918. Fifty million people died. Among them were more than 600,000 Americans.

But now the war and the epidemic were over. Anthony might have even sensed a mood of hopefulness on that bright winter day. The people of the North End had reason to believe that better times were at hand.

They were wrong. A disaster was about to strike the

neighborhood. In fact, a threat had loomed over the North End for years. It was not a German bomb or a deadly disease.

It was a huge steel tank filled with molasses.

from Pies to BombsMolasses is a thick, brown syrup. Like white

sugar, it comes from the sugarcane plant, which grows in hot and humid regions. Until the late 1800s, white sugar cost a lot. Only the rich could buy it. Molasses tasted bitter. But it was cheap. So it was molasses that sweetened early America’s desserts, like pumpkin pie and Indian pudding.

By the 1900s, sugar

In the hours after the collapse of the molasses tank, rescuers waded through rivers of goo to reach the injured. Many were trapped under wrecked buildings. For months, Boston stank of molasses, and Boston Harbor was stained brown.

LOOk fOr WOrD NErD’S 9 WOrDS iN BOLD

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prices had dropped. Most Americans no longer cooked with molasses. The syrup was being put to a new use: to make bombs. Heated up in a process called distillation, molasses can be turned into a liquid called industrial alcohol. In this form, it became a key ingredient in the explosives used in the war against Germany.

Throughout World War I, ships loaded with millions of gallons of molasses came to Boston’s ports. Trains would then take the gooey cargo to distilleries. In these places, it was turned into industrial alcohol.

In 1914, the leaders of a company called United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA), decided to build a huge tank near Boston Harbor. The tank would store molasses. It was built quickly. The North End had already been pretty grim. Now a three-story steel tank towered over the neighborhood. It blocked the sun and the harbor view.

But it wasn’t just the tank’s ugliness that upset the

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people of the North End. Just hours after the tank was first filled,

molasses was oozing from its seams like blood from unseen wounds. When the tank was filled, it rumbled and groaned, as though the steel walls were crying out in pain. Some people who lived near the tank thought it was unsafe. But what could they do? USIA was a big company, and the people in the North End were poor and powerless. At that time, many Americans viewed immigrants with deep suspicion and prejudice. Even if people had complained about the danger, they might not have found any help.

And so the years passed. The tank kept leaking. The sounds of the straining steel grew

louder—until the moment on that day in 1919, when Anthony di Stasio was heading home.

Violent SwirlThe first sign of

danger was a strange sound:

Rat, tat, tat, tat.

Rat, tat, tat, tat.Rat, tat, tat, tat. It was the sound of the thousands of steel

rivets that held the tank together popping out of place. After years of strain, the tank was breaking apart.

People froze in their tracks. Then there was an explosion.

“Run!” a man screamed. “It’s the tank!”Anthony looked up. The tank seemed to

crack apart like a huge egg, unleashing 2.7 million gallons of molasses. The syrup formed a huge brown wave—15 feet high, 160 feet wide, and moving at 35 miles per hour. It was heavier and more destructive than a wave of ocean water. It moved with great speed and power. Within seconds, it crushed wooden houses and flattened a three-story fire station. It swept away motorcars. It snapped electrical poles. Anthony and many others were caught in the violent swirl.

The wave pulled Anthony under. Molasses filled his mouth. He was carried for several blocks. Then he crashed into a metal

lamppost. The blow knocked him out. A firefighter saw him pinned against the lamppost. Rushing through waist-deep syrup, the man grabbed the boy just before he was swept away.

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USIA still would not take the blame. At first it seemed the company would not be punished. But the victims demanded justice. The trial dragged on for years. In the end, USIA was forced to pay $1 million (equal to about $7 million today). For the people of the North End, it was a big triumph.

It took years for the North End to rebuild after the flood. Some say that on hot days, the

scent of molasses still rises up, like a ghost.

But somehow this disaster has been largely forgotten. Few have heard the amazing stories from the Molasses Flood of 1919—like the story of Anthony di Stasio.

Anthony’s body was taken to a

building that was being used to store bodies of those who had died. He was covered with a sheet. But he wasn’t dead. He was just

unconscious. Hours later, he woke up. He heard his mom’s voice calling him. He tried to answer. But his mouth was filled with molasses.

He sat up. Soon he was surrounded by his family. He was lucky. He had survived one of the

strangest disasters in U.S. history.

8 s t o r y w o r k s

Write a newspaper article reporting the results of the USIA trial. In your article, include the causes and effects of the molasses flood. Send your article to “Molasses Contest” by February 15, 2014. Ten winners will each receive a copy of The Great Molasses Flood by Deborah Kops. See page 2 for details.

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The firefighter held Anthony’s limp

body. He scanned the child’s syrup-coated face. He was sure the

boy was dead. By the time the wave lost its power, half

a mile of the North End was flooded with molasses. Hundreds of firefighters, police officers, nurses, and sailors came to help. They freed people trapped under wrecked buildings and tangled in sticky debris. Water did little to wash the syrup away. Instead, firefighters used salt water to scour the goo from the streets. In the end, 21 people were killed, and 150 were hurt.

the Strangest DisasterWithin hours of the

flood, leaders of USIA had stated that they were not to blame. Their tank, they claimed, had been bombed by “criminals.” But few believed this claim. Experts inspected the remains of the tank. They spoke to people who had seen the leaks and heard the strange sounds. Their conclusion: The tank had been shoddily built, and the leaders at USIA had known it.

Molasses and sugar come from the same plant: sugarcane (top).