It’s your lunch hour, and you have a few errands to run or messages to deliver. You leave your workplace and go about your business. You’ve looked forward to getting out all morning, because the previous few days have been bitterly cold, and today, at least, it’s above freezing.
You are just approaching the supports of the elevated railway when you hear a roaring, grumbling bang quickly followed by a machine-gun like staccato of ping! ping! ping! As you turn to look behind you, you are swept off your feet by a wave of thick brown liquid, but you have time to grasp the railway support as you start to be carried away. Then, as the mass quickly solidifies in the cool air, you find you can’t escape.
Crow on the Wing
Something like this could have happened to you in Boston, Massachusetts, on 15 January 1919 at 1230 pm, when a molasses storage tank in the North End of the city burst explosively and flooded the surrounding area. The thunderous rumble was the tank’s collapse; the whizzing pings were the rivets propelled from the tank’s steel plates. Reports say that the wave was 25 feet at its highest and flowed at around 35 mph. The burst tank was originally 50 ft high x 90 ft in diameter and had a capacity of 2.3 million US gallons or 8700 m3. That’s a lot of molasses. After the initial surge, the clinging liquid flowed through the city like cold, sweetly fragrant lava, becoming progressively more viscous as it cooled further.
Flowers by the Sea
Rescue efforts were underway quickly. Cadets from the maritime training vessel docked nearby ran to the scene to extricate those entrapped. The police, Army, Navy, and Red Cross arrived shortly afterwards. The search for victims went on for four days; some had been swept into the harbour and weren’t found until months afterwards. In all, 21 people died, and 150 were injured from airborne or molasses-swept debris. Cleanup took weeks, using jets of water from a fireboat. De-sticking the greater Boston area took even longer, as rescuers, clean-up crews, and sightseers had tracked and deposited molasses everywhere – on payphones, on subway seats, into homes. It was said that for decades afterwards, on warm summer days, it was possible to smell odour of molasses wafting from the streets and buildings.
Front Garden Orchid
However, there were some positive outcomes. One of the first class action suits in Massachusetts history was filed against the tank’s owners, which led to modern corporate regulation. After three years of hearings, and findings that the tank had been shoddily built, other laws concerning civil engineering were also changed to ensure that such structures were more safely built. (Many thanks to Wikipedia, where there is an informative article with more detail.)
Impressionist Irises
Unlike molasses, the flow down the sleeve of the gansey has been progressing more and more quickly. There were a few sticky points (inattention again), annoying but quickly fixed. Being so near the home stretch and having a self-imposed deadline of 1 June, a few extra hours were found to toboggan down the sleeve. Just six inches of cuff to go . . .
I love this post! At first I wondered where you were going with the molasses story. Beautiful sweater, great narrative approach.
Thank you!
That reminds me of an incident some years back. At the time we lived close to the harbour at the top of a hill, with the port directly below us. There were several storage tanks at the edge of the harbour. One day there was a panic in the neighbourhood with the rumour that an oil tank had burst.
However the sweet smell of molasses soon spread over the area, and everyone relaxed. How the fish in the harbour dealt with that, I don’t know, but with the highest tides in the world, it soon dispersed out to sea.
At least it didn’t flow uphill . . . in January . . . I had an acquaintance who used to say, “As slow as molasses uphill in January”.
A horrendous situation for the people at the time. I prefer my molasses/treacle in sticky cakes. Good to see the Thurso/Scrabster Gansey nearing completion. Well done. To follow will you be able to find a Gansey from the Johnstone Collection that Gordon unfortunately was unable to knit? Best regards and happy knitting.
Hi Kevin
There is no shortage of ganseys to knit from the Johnston photos. The ganseys in the photos range from quite plain to quite ornate. I’ll be busy for quite a while!
That’s the good thing about cuffs – they are the smallest number of stitches and go quickly.