Morbid Mondays - Episode 31 - The Boston Molasses Flood

Let's get sticky!! What do you get when a crappy company rushes the build of a completely unnecessary build. A 20 ft wall of syrup!!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Whop womp.

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Oh my god, I'm like so out of practice. It's been like two weeks.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

It's been a while. It's been a while.

SPEAKER_03 0:07

I got monstrously sick. Like non-functional, no voice, couldn't breathe, couldn't speak.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

Jesus. Yeah, that was going around, man. Everybody was like, everyone was getting sick.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

I took one job, one job to do prom makeup, and I came back so sick. So sick. Got the plague. Literally. Like three teenagers in my in my makeup studio, and I'm just like dying.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

Whatever, her makeup looked bomb as fuck though.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

And then the weather.

SPEAKER_03 0:42

Oh yeah. I maintain that was at least half of it, was the fucking just like tree bukake.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Yeah. What is it? Spermatophore?

SPEAKER_03 0:57

I think. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

Whatever the sperm of trees is called.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

I I never did botany. I just make really inappropriate jokes. It is the way. There's a universe I'm thrown out of in five minutes. No.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Oh, somebody's riding that van feck. That weird, like Sham type horn plays in the background. It's like a didgeridoo noise that they play ever at all the time.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Oh, I fucking love Jin though. Like he's we just watched the Mandalorian Mandalorian like all the way through. Like seasons one and two. Like, we are ready for the movie to come out. I think this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Um, I am so ready, Pedro Pascal, my hero forever. If you ever become pop problematic, I will come beat you with a chunkla.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

Um he got close, and then not really. Good. That's the worst, the worst thing I've heard is there's like one thing where he's out with William Dafoe, and apparently he's a very huggy guy. And then he's like, William Defoe's like, don't do that. He's like, Oh, sorry. And then that was the end of it.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Good.

unknown 2:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:07

That's our boy. There's a reason Pedro Pascal is the internet's sweetheart right now. Broby popping up everywhere, just all smiles. I love him.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

He was in the Bad Bunny thing. Yes, yes, he was. The air party.

SPEAKER_03 2:21

Dude, he was just partying in the background. He was the only reason I watched the halftime show.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

So funny, man. Also, Ricky Martin sounded awesome. Ricky Martin always does, though. Yeah, he it somehow got better.

SPEAKER_03 2:32

I am enjoying some of these modern quote unquote pop stars and like musical stars discovering older styles.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Because, like, you know, that's shit it like that I grew up on.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

I'm not trying to like date myself or anything. I'm saying I grew up in my grandmother's house. So, you know, music from the 40s and the 50s was prevalent.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

We had a picture of Vincente Fernandez on our wall.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_02 2:58

Hey, dude, he was awesome. I don't care what anybody said.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

He was so fucking so cool.

SPEAKER_02 3:04

He's like, what if John Wayne was like really handsome and also uh like a mariachi singer? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

I was like, that's powerful voice, smooth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:18

I was like, dude, that's a very specific time and place.

SPEAKER_03 3:24

What's what's the movie? Disney did one, Day of the Dead.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Coco?

SPEAKER_03 3:30

Yes. Yeah. The bad the the the big the big bad evil guy. Yeah. Exactly what I thought, too.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

I was like, I know that guy. I've seen a couple of his movies.

SPEAKER_03 3:41

I'm so glad we went to the same place with that. All right.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

We used to, because we used to have a dump bin at the local like Walmart that had like five dollar movies. And it there was always a ton of them in there.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

And there ain't shit wrong with them. They're all good.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

They're good. They're like, they're good and they're a lot less problematic than some of the American ones.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:02

Because there's a couple, like, I went back and watched some of the like Clint Eastwood movies. And I was just like, bruh, why is he dragging that woman in a barn? Oh, this went to a weird place really fast. Yeah. Jesus Christ. Yeah, I was like, that's a what the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 4:16

Like Clint Eastwood, and who was the other one? One of my dad's heroes. Um, I can't think of his name.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

John Wayne was in real life not a super nice guy.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

Nor was Sean Connery.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Which is unfucking fortunate.

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Yeah, they were they were like crazy misogynistic.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

Dude, and I grew up on James Bond movies too.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

Like, I'm not gonna say like any of the James Bonds were like my first love or anything. No, no, no, no. That honor goes to Spock and Spock alone. Um there were clues so early. Why did no one tell me? Why did I not know? Uh nah, but like I grew up on those movies, and like the you cycle through the James Bonds. Yeah. Like everybody has their favorite James Bond. Don't ask me the name of the actor of my favorite James Bond, because I don't know any of their names except for Sean Connery and the new guy, Something Craig. Daniel Craig.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Daniel Craig. Um there was uh Roger Moore who pulled it.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

I think I think that was it.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

I think that was a Saint, if you remember the old Saint.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

Yes, Roger Moore Pierce Brosnan.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

I loved Pierce Brosnan.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

And the the other one was Timothy Dalton.

SPEAKER_03 5:27

Timothy Dalton was a good one too. They were all good. Like there was not a bad bond.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Because they're there's they're purposefully campy.

SPEAKER_03 5:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:35

So like you that gives you a lot of leadway. And Timothy Dalton also played uh in Hot Fuzz, he was the bad guy.

SPEAKER_03 5:43

And uh Timothy Dalton, Timothy Dalton just plays excellent villains.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

He because he's he's a very suave person that makes it funny.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

And he's got this. Let me let me make sure. Hang on, let me Google him really quick just to make sure that I'm picturing the right guy.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

He's the guy that's like, I'm a slasher of prices.

SPEAKER_03 6:02

Timothy Dalton. Yes, I am thinking of the right guy. Okay, there's something about his face, like the especially when he was younger, the the angles of his face and that dimple in his chin that just lends to like a perfect cinematic villain.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, I gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Like he wasn't correct me if I'm wrong, but he was the bad guy in The Rocketeer, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:29

I think so.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

That was him, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:31

You and me are maybe the only people who've ever seen that movie.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

The Rocketeer, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:35

I was obsessed with Rocketeer.

SPEAKER_03 6:36

I I I Yeah. It is so creepy. We are literally the same person. Anyway, so yeah, Timothy Dalton and The Rocketeer.

SPEAKER_01 6:45

Yeah. Peak.

SPEAKER_03 6:46

Peak. Like when I write a villain and I need him to be like handsome and suave and debonair, and you know, just like like, you know, giving the vibe, Timothy Dalton. That's who's in my head.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

He's the villain who can be an absolute shit and also be funny. In the way that like Christoph Waltz can. Christoph Waltz can pull that off too, where he's just like a likable monster.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Do you know like and you're just speaking of people that can that can play these roles and play into them really well, since we're on the topic of bond. Also, hi, welcome to Morbid Mondays.

SPEAKER_02 7:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

Um Daniel Craig, the the um uh the the series of movies that he's been in as the detective.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:34

Uh he plays uh like one of them's the glass onion, uh, the other is knives out. Oh, what's that? And I think there's a third one. It's like I don't know, but he's foghorn leghorn in like human or something like that. Yeah. And he's so good. Especially considering like I know what Daniel Craig sounds like. Like, Daniel Craig is a geek like us. Yeah, he like snuck onto the Star Wars set and was like, Can I be a stormtrooper? But in English, yeah. I can do that at all.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

He's like Remy Delacroix or some shit.

SPEAKER_03 8:05

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

His name is Benoit Blanc.

SPEAKER_03 8:08

That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

I was just like, I remember it being a very funny name of just like going, nobody's actual name is I am Detective Benoit Blanc.

SPEAKER_03 8:18

Yeah. You are Foghorn Leghorn, sir. You are from Kentucky.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

No, I may be just a simple country hyper chicken. I can't get No.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

So now that we've wandered all the fuck over the place.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

We I'll cut out some of that. I'll just feel like.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Holding our breath.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Both of us just away for the microphone. Welcome. Hello. Greetings. Welcome to or welcome back to Morbid Mondays, your unhinged source for what the fuck moments throughout history, where we will take turns giving you a weekly tour through all of the gross, gory, and downright odd moments in history. We're your hosts. I'm Katie.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

I'm Brian.

SPEAKER_03 9:01

All right, let's get into this shit. Tell me, Brian, as you are also a denizen of having grown up in the South, you are familiar with the the fun little idiom that was probably thrown at you as a teenager and a child. You are slower than molasses in January.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Am I correct?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:17

I cannot tell you how many times I heard about that. Or had it said to me. Usually, usually right before like a slipper came around the corner at my head. Um, because I was dawdling because teenager.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Your daddy wasn't a glassmaker. That's the one. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

That that's that's move you're in the way.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Um, oh my god, that's that that could be a whole nother podcast, is just translating southern idioms. You are slower than molasses in January going uphill both ways.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

What? I really wish that I had known about today's story as a child and a teenager, because I'd have popped back with it so fast. So fast. Oh, I'm moving slow, am I? Here, let me give you some disturbing information. So if only I'd known that on Wednesday, January 15th, 1919, that there was a tidal wave of molasses. What? Alright. If I had but known. If I had but first of all, if I'd known, I would have said it. If I'd said it, I would have gotten my mouth slapped clean off my face. Did you know that in 1919 molasses killed 23 people in a flood?

SPEAKER_02 10:41

Way more than I thought.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

Because I've It's on here somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I've heard of molasses breaking out and like beer breaking out and a couple other things breaking out and causing floods.

SPEAKER_03 10:51

Fantastic that you mentioned that because I also ran across these. Well, I okay, so here's here's how this came about. I have been marginally aware of the Boston molasses flood for about like six, seven years. I've I've known about it. I I came across it when I was originally doing uh my TikTok series, Morbid Mondays, and I was like, that's wild. And and then I just kind of like walked away from it for some reason because I guess I thought it was one of those that's been done and done and done and done and done and done and done because like there's no shortage of sources for information on this.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

It's everywhere, much like the molasses was. Um so I just kind of walked away from it and let it be. And then I was Googling around, like, God, I mean I I fucking miss the stumble upon button.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

I miss that shit.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yes, it was awesome. It was so good. Feeling lucky.

SPEAKER_03 11:49

Yeah. So I was I was doing the Reddit version of that, basically, just looking for morbid, freaky, weird history shit. And that was how I found there was there was a whiskey flood in Glasgow in 1906, by the way. And then Oh, excuse me.

SPEAKER_02 12:09

I have them right-leveled. It was drank before it dried.

SPEAKER_03 12:15

In on November 21st, 1906, 150,000 gallons of boiling hot whiskey escaped a distillery in Glasgow with exactly one fatality.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Whoever was right underneath it.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Bingo.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Yeah, I was like, I because I understand, like, I know how whiskey is made. I was like, it would have had to have been the boiler. Yep. Like the the actual still head broke. Like it it busted a rivet and went everywhere.

SPEAKER_03 12:44

But wait, there's more. Because previous to that, in London, there was a beer flood in 1814.

SPEAKER_02 12:54

This one I know about.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

320,000 gallons of beer flooded the streets. God. How many? 320,000 gallons. And that one, that one, that one, that one, eight people died in that one.

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah, I remember reading something about this that the copper bands that that kept the barrel, the the barrel had like shrunk and shifted, and the bands had started like corroding and the rivets had broke off, and they couldn't like get it back in place. So like it was literally a giant barrel. Like it was a it was a a huge vat.

SPEAKER_03 13:34

I now I only I only did like the the barest little like dips into those because like I found those and then I found the molasses one. Then I was like, you know, it's weird that it's happened three times.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah. Of all different fluids.

SPEAKER_03 13:51

Whiskey, beer, molasses.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Yeah, wait, you hear about the one that happened just outside of Vegas.

SPEAKER_03 13:56

What?

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Gross. Now I'm just Oh, oh I'm just making a joke. Okay. I promise it didn't actually happen. No, there's not like a Venice beach flood.

SPEAKER_03 14:09

Bruh.

SPEAKER_02 14:10

Brought to you by vivid.

SPEAKER_03 14:14

Okay. All right, lock in. Let's fucking do this. So, like I said, it's weird that it's happened three times in history now. Like just a flood of recreational fluids killing folk after breaking out of creational fluids. That is not what I meant. That's not what I meant.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Stick it on this one.

SPEAKER_03 14:38

No.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

Santa Monica, here we come. Oh man. That's awesome. Uh oh, I think that's the yeah. Well, there was one. There was at least one. You had like, if there was gonna be one, it was gonna be at Diddy's house.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Baby oil.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

It was a flood of baby oil. It may not have killed somebody, but it did wreck some lives. You know what I mean? Like that's Oh my god. Do you remember it was like a truckload?

SPEAKER_03 15:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:08

I remember somebody telling me like the amount of gallons, and I was like, that's like a truck.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

That's like a I only vaguely remember it because like I I I stepped I stepped very far away from like popular music for a minute.

unknown 15:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

And like not for any good reasons or anything. Like, like I wasn't even trying to like hipster my way into like I only listen to Indian Underground. No. No. No, I'm just weird. I would I was fucking listening to like Celtic women and shit.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Oh my god. That's a blast. Oh, that's a memory unlock.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Yeah, I fucking right.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

It's pure emotion.

SPEAKER_03 15:47

Yeah. Yes. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 15:55

Uh so fucking so 1919.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

So let me let me let me let me recalibrate our mood here because we are like ADHDing so hard today.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

Squirrels. Squirrels recorded in like three weeks, two, three weeks.

SPEAKER_03 16:10

Yeah. Like we tried to do it last week and we wound up just talking for like four and a half hours. Just locked in this little closet in a room, just talking. Fucking anime, video games, the weird patch on the carpet. I conversation went everywhere. Alright, so what the hell all is going on in 1919, Brian? Like, because I know that you are you are like my my American history hub.

SPEAKER_02 16:34

Fucking wars.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

Well, yeah. World War I has just ended.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Um we're about to, not quite, but well, maybe it's already started. I don't really know the exact date on this. Um, but there's a gonna be a massive pandemic in America in the 1920s.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

Uh, that's the uh the influenza thing, right? Yeah. Spanish flu. Spanish flu.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Um sometime around here, just predating Spanish flu, is the horse flu uh pandemic. It's gonna hit all the horses in America and it's gonna be real gross. Yep. Uh we're gonna bring Chicago to its knees. And a lot of stuff. Uh like women's suffrage movements, all kinds of shit.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Like so 1919 is is is busy. Now, granted, most of early American history seems to be weirdly busy. World War One has just ended.

SPEAKER_02 17:20

Yeah, it was like it should have just stopped.

SPEAKER_03 17:22

Um, prohibition is getting started. Berlin is like starting a crew and then it's failing almost immediately.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

Oh, but it's gonna get worse. Uh yeah. Um, and then right now there should be Hooverville's in Central Park and in front of Washington.

SPEAKER_03 17:39

And Teddy Roosevelt has died.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

Uh there there's a whole bunch of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

There's a bunch of stuff. A bunch of not some good, some bad. Mostly bad, actually, but uh but some on the way to being good.

SPEAKER_03 17:52

Yeah. Uh like World War I ending. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

That's a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 17:56

That's a real good thing. Excellent thing. Uh, and oh yeah, and Boston sees one of the strangest catastrophic floods it has ever seen. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Boston molasses flood of 1919. You heard me correctly. Molasses flood. Now, I okay, so as as as a being in the southern hemisphere of the United States, I'm very familiar with molasses. Brian, I know you are too.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Oh, sure.

SPEAKER_03 18:28

Um most of anybody who bakes is gonna be real familiar with with molasses. Um, so for those that aren't, I will, I will briefly tell you that molasses is a is a very, very, very, very, very, one more time, very underline, bold, italic, very thick syrup made out of s sugar.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Yeah. Um pretty much sugar before it's like processed into granules.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Yeah, and like and from molasses, you can get all sorts of things. All sorts of stuff. Like you can keep it as molasses and use it as a syrup for uh various bakings. Um, my dad used to just put it on pancakes.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Um, like it's it's good. It tastes really good. It's cooked sugar.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

If you're uh fan of Over the Garden Wall, you add it with potatoes.

SPEAKER_03 19:21

Potatoes?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

And molasses.

SPEAKER_03 19:23

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 19:25

Somebody will listen to this who's seen Over the Garden Wall, and they'll just they're gonna fucking hate us so much. Potatoes and molasses.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

What the shit? You're about to show me this.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

I'll show it to you later.

SPEAKER_03 19:38

Thank you. Uh so yeah, you can get a lot of things from molasses, and one of the things that you can get, like after processing it, is rum.

SPEAKER_02 19:47

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

And also during World War One, they were using molasses to distill alcohol from to make fucking military-grade Moltoff cocktails.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

I did not know that.

SPEAKER_03 19:59

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Really? That is the first time I've ever heard that.

SPEAKER_03 20:03

Stop. Hang on. I know something about World War One that Brian does. Let me bask in this for just a moment.

SPEAKER_01 20:08

I've never heard that in my life.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

Yeah, they were making like bombs and shit out of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

That's awesome. Like it's terrifying, right?

SPEAKER_03 20:16

Uh, it was part of it was part of how a whole bunch of distilleries stayed in business, is that they began uh providing ethanol alcohol to the military to make these hello smoke. I didn't even know you were still in here.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Did they I guess on the table? I guess also probably for airplane fuel.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

I'm not sure about that. I uh what the what I was reading said that the the the company that I'm going to be talking about specifically today uh was providing it for incendiary stuff.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

That's so wild.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

I know. Because I did not know that you could get that from molasses. I knew you could get rum from molasses, but I did not know you could get bomb from molasses.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

That's fucking sick.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

I need y'all to understand that I was like goblin-shrimped in my chair, like wearing my shark snuggy, doing research on this, like reading through these old articles. And when I say old, I mean like these are scanned-in newspaper clippings from 1919. And talking about like, and the the USIA was providing ethanol alcohol to the military for bombs, and I was like, bombs, with my little ice coffee in my hand and my sharp like hoodie pulled up. Bombs, you say. But yeah, so like the the this company in particular, this distillery, I guess I should say, was uh what is it with me in distilleries lately? Like last last time it was the fucking uh the swill milk distilleries. That's right. And now this time it's fucking molasses.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Yeah. F U G G I N fucking carabs are on is something, guys.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Like, look, if you didn't drink so much, you're right, you could have avoided all but like

SPEAKER_03 22:00

in in like the 19 the in the early 1900s like fuck it was the only like distilled everything was the only safe thing to drink and also like maybe for many people the only entertainment literally cards and alcohol so welcome to january 15th 1919 so boston massachusetts uh is at this point in time like this the the area that we're gonna be working on working on working with working within commercial street there we go that took way too long to get out you are chewing on my finger you're so cute there's a cat that yes smoke is on the table it's not me that would be weird oh hello smoke please meow or something so they believe me because like this car Brian cut this out in editing please yeah um it's too funny though no so commercial street or on main street Boston Massachusetts is primarily populated by uh Italian immigrants at the time because like that's that was kind of the US's like claim to fame at the time was like you know give us your seat you're sick you're hungry yeah you know we we were we were sanctuary yes like we were pulling people in like if you don't want to be where you are come here which is what pisses me off about the government today. Yeah uh but anyway so Commercial Street in in Boston M in Boston Massachusetts right now I've seen pictures of it and like if you if you look up like the newspaper articles from this like if you decide to go look at pictures looking at it before the flood it looks very much like provided these are black and white materi bla black and white photos but it looks very much like a colorful cozy community. I I I imagine like I've seen inside these people's don't say flats I've seen inside these people's apartments and like they're one and two bedroom apartments but they're very I don't know they just look snugly they look they look cozy like it and it may just be like a modern filter of my perception being thrown onto this on what was probably like the equivalent of the slums and there's there's a port there. Yeah um and like the the the main industry there is the uh the distillery and like I think there's a couple of canning factories if if I recall correctly um it's been like three weeks since I did this research like I did all of this research I was ready to go on Monday I did that makeup job and then like Monday morning I came down so sick so fucking sick but this community has very little say in what happens and this the distillery builds a a holding tank like smack in the middle of it and these people are immigrants and not a lot of them not a lot of them speak a whole lot of fluent English so there's like virtually no pushback when they decide to build this great big huge holding tank because they're providing you know alcohol for the military and then like you know World War I ends and they're like all right bet we're gonna go back to making booze. Let's make booze. So and then and then like two or three months later like prohibition starts to get ratified and so they're like fuck now we have to do something else. Alright load it up let's make all of the rum before we're not allowed to sell it anymore. So this tank goes up so fast. It goes up so quickly that like to the to our modern like eyes and sensibilities we would go all the safety violations. Yeah um warning warning danger Will Robinson yeah this is in the time period where like people are taking images of like the Empire State building being built these guys are just hanging over a ledge oh yeah dude like safety codes non-existent yeah this is the wild west of architecture it's it feels almost overnight like there's not a tank there's just an open field and then like two weeks later there is a there is a massive what we would equate to like a water tower tank that they are they are filling with molasses and here's the thing it wouldn't be so bad except that it is now obvious that this tank has been slip shod put up because from day one of of it being filled with molasses it leaks oh great like and it's not just like and it's not just like oh there's a leak haha it's it's the kids are taking buckets and like filling buckets under the tank of molasses and they they the the community finally you know informs them hey your tank is leaking you should you should fix that do you know what this company does do you know what USI USIA does they paint the tank brown so that you can't see the drip can't see the drip it's amazing it's amazing pterodactyl shriek oh so dude it is it is a collection of bad ideas that that all like cumulate and lead up to this so I I know I'm also I'm thinking of it in that like modern Boston accent you know like that like just put in a big tub put in a big tub in a field it'll be alright you know it'd be alright it's fine um I cannot do a Bostonian accent like the only Boston that the only Boston accent joke I know is is the is the the khakis joke the khakis that's the only one I know and that's like the the only I guess metric for for stereotypical why was I trying to say anything else a stereotypical Boston accent so I'm just gonna close the door on that we're not gonna play your pretends you need jersey I got jersey um you need English I can do that too uh that was still jersey no I was like posh posh channel your grandmother water the queen's English there we go found it Brighton Jesus Christ welcome to my brain guys it's a fucking mess in here so now we have so now we have a a an oil tanker of sticky of molasses yeah constantly leaking can you imagine how bad it was in the summer I bet it smelled amazing though funny that you mentioned that uh that will come back in just a moment so it is it is January and two days previously USIA has decided that they are gonna top up this tank to absolute capacity because they are gonna make all the fucking rum all of it all of it before they are not allowed to sell it anymore because prohibition is riding everyone's ass and they're not buying drinks first. Yeah um that was funny and I demand you laugh it is funny thank you I just I just kept thinking that molasses doesn't make very good lube oh my god water based lube guys come on it's the only safe one using anything else you're asking for complications and infections so sneezy potato yeah um and molasses no and molasses all right so it's January so we all think especially down here in the south we all equate January to fucking cold in the north now here it's probably gonna be about 75 degrees until it until it hits and when it hits it's like our one really cold month. Yeah and then it's like in the 30s consistently and we're like fuck it's cold what do we do with this it's wet all the freaking time too but yeah January is like legendarily cold everywhere else. Well on this particular day on January 15th 1919 Boston reaches a balmy 45 degrees now tell me Brian you are as educated as I am on thermal expansion yeah everything else is not ice yep most things get smaller when they get cold yep ice is weird everything else gets a little smaller now most things not everything most things but so porty is above the freezing temp so it is now expanding even to a container because they heat it they heat the molasses to transfer it into the container to make the the the process go not only faster but smoother but it's been cold this whole time it's been cold this whole time so they've got cold molasses at the bottom of it and it I could not find anywhere what the level of the cold molasses was like that just didn't seem to get recorded anywhere which tracks for how fast and loose everything was being done.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

I imagine the level is full like they filled the tank.

SPEAKER_03 31:37

They filled it up with the new shipment that came in which would have been heated and then added to like and added to this containment thing. Yeah and so it's had it's had not only like a day to start to cool off but then like now it's 45 degrees which means that all of the stuff on the bottom is now warming up so the volume of molasses is expanding because that's what molasses does.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

Yeah. Because it it's you would think that it would also be like ice because it's the water right it's not no molasses will not freeze.

SPEAKER_03 32:14

You can stick it in the freezer and it will not freeze.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

It turns into like gum yeah like this thick sludge.

SPEAKER_03 32:19

You are exactly correct and molasses at an ambient temperature at just like standard what you would conceive of as like standard room temperature is already 40% thicker than water like and I I and I know that's not really saying much considering water is like you know you think this thin is water is a common thing in our house uh it which will pertain to either viscosity or flavor but so we sorry we have a tank of cold molasses they're pumping hot molasses in and then they're heating it and then the and then the day gets hot.

SPEAKER_02 32:55

Yeah so they think it's like well it's fine because it went in hot and it's still below the the level but then it the whole then everything warms up.

SPEAKER_03 33:04

Mm-hmm and what happens when things warm up it things expand. Yeah and just blows this fucking old tin can at 1230 pm almost on the nose there was a sound heard by us by a passing security guard. Like I'm not sure if he was a cop or a security guard. I'm gonna go with cop because like it sounds better.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Because like and some level of responsibility it's probably just some guy.

SPEAKER_03 33:34

Nah I'm I'm pretty sure he was either a security officer that was uh employed by USIA or he was an actual cop for the area. I'm not really sure but when he reported it later he said it sounded like machine gun fire. The rivets bingo oh that's fucking sick and he turns just in time and this is this is almost a direct quote I'm paraphrasing now but I did read the article that quoted him directly to see it peel open and a what was it 25 or 35 a 25 foot wave of molasses just crashing down onto commercial street this is a heavily residential area.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

There's one saving grace that they didn't have to boil it to move it through pipes. True that would have killed everyone boiling yeah napalm.

SPEAKER_03 34:30

Yeah I like any anybody who bakes knows that molasses sugar cooked sugar in general turns to fucking napalm watch a a any video on somebody making their own candy yeah they will tell you right at the start wear big ass gloves this shit will burn the crap out of you my partner's a lunatic because my partner makes uh crack glass cinnamon candy every Christmas and this maniac of a man will do this shit shirtless no gloves.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Yeah and sometimes not even in a double boiler.

SPEAKER_03 35:03

That's the crazy shit he just yeah it was just like yikes he'll just straight sugar in a pan on the stove I love you I'm gonna be in the other room with like 911 on ready to go so we got a 25 foot wall of fucking sticky coming at you. To quote myself here at 1230 p.m that overfilled that had decided it had enough yeah no shit like 2.3 million gallons of molasses tsunamied out and crashed into the north end of the of commercial street that that's so much bigger than I thought. Yeah so this is like this is like an oil container yeah yeah yeah yeah I wish I'd I'd I thought I was gonna bring my tablet with me and I just didn't grab it because I have a whole bunch of pictures pulled up that I could show you um from I still have it all pulled up from I mean I got my computer I'm gonna look at search you keep talking I'm gonna look I just have to know so yeah 2.3 million gallons of molasses just slams into commercial the north end of commercial street all thanks to Purity Distillery which is USIA to quote myself here yes yet another story involving the US's boozy fucking history I was so done with this even right here why is the rum gone because because the vat broke and it's in the all the molasses tsunamied out that's why the rum is gone can you imagine the sound when it sort of gloop yeah this giant but like a gloop so big you could hear it from city blocks away yeah so when when I when I expressed you the sheer volume of the molasses like like I I know that we're all kind of Holy shit oh you found the pictures didn't you it is exactly what they keep oil in.

SPEAKER_02 37:06

Yeah yeah like like big natural like not the natural gas ones but the the crude tanks oh I know exactly which picture you're looking at too great it even has the guardrail around the did you find but did you find the one before or after they painted it uh I think this is after because it's dark in a black and white photo and it normally it'd be probably white. Yeah that's so fucked that's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 37:27

It looks exactly like the oil refineries that we're used to down here.

SPEAKER_02 37:30

Like we It completely it comes it's way over the top of the factory. Like because there's a triangular building that kind of looks like a uh elevator house it's well over the top by like a story.

SPEAKER_03 37:43

It's it's enormous. So a 25 foot wave moving at 35 miles an hour and this is a fluid that has 40% more viscosity than water. So it's heavy heavy so it it it it is moving at such a clip that it knocks the fire station off its foundation because the fire station is like right there like right next to it. Like it is ground zero Jesus Christ and it collapses the second story of the fire station into the first story leaving like this 18 inch crawl space and it like it like kills like eight firefighters. That's wow like in the first like few seconds it knocks it off the found sta foundation and just pancakes it damn yeah it like it knocks train cars off tracks it's insane like I I I know that it's kind of become a little bit of a joke in history like oh the molasses flood ha ha ha ha no but it's like I mean imagine being at the beach and a wave hits you.

SPEAKER_02 38:49

Now imagine that that wave is a 40% heavier. It's 40% heavier yeah like that's that that's yeah imagine it slaps the shit out of you and knocks you like and knocks you like 10 feet back.

SPEAKER_03 39:03

To continue continue on that analogy like those of us that are beachgoers are very familiar with getting our asses handed to us by surprise waves. Yeah um we live down by the beach so if like you know and I'm an AV brat so I grew up at the beach I am very very used to being knocked flat on my face by a wave. You know but you get hit by the wave you sputter a little bit you get up and you're fine you know you wipe the salt water off your face sling it off and you're good to go. This is molasses.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

And it's 20 feet tall. I mean it's like it's like the waves that like on point break. Yeah like it's a Laird Hamilton wave but it's sticky as shit.

SPEAKER_03 39:40

It's sticky as shit. It's so thick there is you are to to to jump ahead in the travesty that is this people don't drown in this molasses they suffocate. Yeah because like it's too thick to suck down to like you know suck it into your lungs but it's also too thick for any oxygen to get to you so you just kind of suffocate. Jeez what a way to go right right fuck and because it was waist deep like once it had finally like you know leveled out as a wave does yeah uh it was waist deep eyewitnesses say it was impossible to tell in the upheaval what was under the thrashing about in the sticky mess.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

Yeah because you can't you can't see through it.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

You couldn't tell if that was a person, an animal, a tree.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

And unlike water like water will seek because it's very thin and light and it moves you know like it's it's a liquid so it it's gonna go like you know what I mean? It it's not gonna stay waist deep. If it were water it would just go out.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

Yeah especially considering you're right there on the harbor.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

But probably half the reason why it was as movable as it was was just because of the it was hot and sheer pressure.

SPEAKER_03 40:58

It's weird to think of 45 degrees as hot, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:00

Right, but under under that amount of weight. Yeah and then and then then after that though when it runs out of that energy oh yeah and it starts turning into glue. Yeah it's just gonna stay.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

So like I said people were suffocating rather than drowning under it. Um and one survivor recounts because he lived that he couldn't open his throat to call out to his family. He was he was a child by the way like this is a little kid. He was clawing at his face trying to clear the molasses off so he could breathe and call out to his family that were looking for him because once again this is a community where it was a regular thing for kids to be up where the vat was like with their little buckets or little stick or like wrapping sticks.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

I don't know if you guys ever did this um we we have kind of like I don't know it was a it was a mixed bag on these naval bases but like we I used to live up where it snowed all the time and like my neighbors and I we would go and we would put like like molasses honey or maple syrup like on the fresh snow on the balcony railings and then just kind of like roll it up with sticks.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Okay. Making making a candy of sorts. Yeah yeah kids would do that um this is like like candy floss but like the but but it was it was it's much thicker.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

It's frozen honey specifically is is a texture that I cannot explain to you. It has to be experienced. No having made some like um covered almonds and such yeah yeah it's not uh it's tar like yeah and it's sticky even when it's solid it's it it's very strange it's like gummy but not but it's still a j anyway where I'm getting way off topic. But yeah it's not unusual for all of the kids to be up by the tanks you know getting little sticky treats or getting like you know glasses or buckets of of molasses to bring home. Yeah sure because it's fucking leaking it's just gonna get on the floor uh the ground um yeah so you know that it's it's not unusual. So there was a group of children that were coming back from doing just that when the VAT itself broke and this little boy was one of the survivors. Jeez and I d I have no earthly idea how this child survived like being ground zero when that bitch broke.

SPEAKER_02 43:20

Because he was little he was like six the only thing I can figure is that he was like on top of something.

SPEAKER_03 43:26

I I have no idea but he was with his sister and another little girl and neither one of them survived and he did and like he he said like he the the interview that I read from way back um like I he it was obviously an interview given while he was an adult because the the verbiage there was more mature than say a kid but he said he was clawing at his face trying to get his hands in his mouth so he could like breathe to scream jeez and he came to and his family was standing over him and they were like convinced he was dead And then you know he woke up. 21 people died because of this. By the way, I found my note on that.

SPEAKER_00 44:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:07

21 people died in the initial like crash of molasses just all down commercial street. And 150 people were injured.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Which Yeah, because it just hit them.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:19

It just like it hit them with so much weight, and that's the thing about like water.

SPEAKER_03 44:24

Water is heavy just on its own.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

It's that it's so thin that it doesn't break on you. Or rather, it it breaks like around you.

SPEAKER_03 44:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

You don't actually get the brunt of the force because jumping off a bridge into it. Right. And it can't the molecules can't get out of the way fast enough.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

But if water's coming at you, then yeah, you're typically gonna get like knocked down, but you're gonna be fine. You can get back up.

SPEAKER_02 44:48

Right. But if you get broadsided by molasses. Yeah, I imagine I imagine that it's like slapping things. Like it's moving through in in cars and carriages and and train cars.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Yeah. Remember, it flattened the the uh fire station.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

Yeah, because all of that it's gonna hit the side of the wall, and then the wall is gonna try to hold up that amount of weight coming on a side that it's on its side as opposed to straight down.

SPEAKER_03 45:17

It's crazy, right? Like it's it's it's difficult to conceptualize in your head.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

Yeah, because it because you your head wants to think of it as moving like water.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

But it's definitely absolutely not.

SPEAKER_02 45:28

It's probably more like those old Nickelodeon reels where they let all the gack out. Oh, the slime slime, yeah, and it like covers everything.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

Yeah. So after the initial wave, the syrup gelled because it's it's cooling off now. And like, yeah, you know, you already know. So molasses, once you've heated it and let it let it cool, it it does this weird thing. And I say this as someone that bakes and makes candy a lot. So molasses does this weird thing once it's been heated and cooled, is it turns to this weird kind of like gel cement.

SPEAKER_01 46:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:09

And it is it is nearly impossible to clean up without like boiling water with some sort of astringent in it. Like I I personally I use a lot of like hot lemon water when I'm cleaning.

SPEAKER_02 46:25

Because you have to dissolve it, yeah. And then like a little bit of acid to make it like actually break down.

SPEAKER_03 46:29

Or like hot water and vinegar. Yeah. That it that those are common cleaning solutions in my house. Uh but yeah, so it gelled and became even more viscous, which like I said, cement.

SPEAKER_02 46:42

It looked like fucking molly grease going down the road.

SPEAKER_03 46:45

And as it cooled, it made rescue attempts even more difficult because the people, because you remember the cop that's that saw it happening, he immediately ran to like a phone and like called the station and was like, send every rescue unit we have.

SPEAKER_02 47:00

Yeah, because once it cools, you're gonna have to mine people out of them. Yeah, the these people are glued into creeks the size of a city.

SPEAKER_03 47:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

So it's like you know, like it's as well.

SPEAKER_03 47:20

It's very it's it it okay, so in my head.

SPEAKER_02 47:23

All I can think of though, like I know this is super serious, but because you know, people have died and it's destroying all this stuff, I cannot help but think like when all the rescue guys show up, and I'm I'm assuming at some point somebody figures out to call fire trucks.

SPEAKER_03 47:37

Yeah, like it's retracting because it's cooling off. And so all its molecules are crushing back together to create this like gelled cement. And we know that molecules and atoms make noise when they do that.

SPEAKER_02 47:52

Yeah, because you're and this is a mass scale. Yeah. Like it's it's not it's not like it's like a bucket of glasses.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

Here we go. Uh the sound the a frozen lake.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:01

The the sound ice makes. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. I don't know why it took me so long to arrive at that conclusion.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Yeah, an occasional snap sound.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

Yeah. And then you've got And it's everywhere. It is everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Also, there's a thing that's gonna happen in this where people are trying to get people out.

SPEAKER_03 48:20

And they're getting stuck.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

They're gonna use tools. Yep. They just tools are gonna get stuck.

SPEAKER_03 48:25

Like they used everything. They used shovels, they used axes, they used picks.

SPEAKER_02 48:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:29

Uh at one point somebody tried to like not flamethrower, but like they tried to use a torch.

SPEAKER_02 48:36

Because they're trying to remelt it. To remelt it and like But that's just gonna burn it and then like make it worse. Really, the best your best option, especially in in 1919, is a fire truck. Right? It is a heated fire truck.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

Well, yeah, so they tried that. They tried just using plain water, and it's like it's not really working. Like, I jumped around because I I got into the middle of this story, and then I was like, but how did all of this happen? Because we have safety guidelines for this. We have emergency measures put in place for situations like this. No, bitch, not in 1919 they didn't. In fact, this incident is why we have all of those safety things that your bitch ass was so concerned about, as I discovered.

SPEAKER_02 49:22

It's always tragedy, right? The triangle shirt waist, yes, the love canal, and now it's the Boston fucking blood.

SPEAKER_03 49:29

They're using all of these tools to try to f excavate people out of buildings, and they're marginally successful.

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Some kids over on the side going, hell, my bro is wicked sticky.

SPEAKER_03 49:39

You know, they and uh so yeah, they're they're like, what the fuck? Like all of the rescuers are like getting stick, getting stick, getting stuck and needing to be rescued in turn. Like they can't tell if like the blob, the thrashing blob that they're excavating is gonna be a person or an animal or like you know, a bush.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:00

They can't tell. Uh so they're just trying to help anything that's moving under the g and then they're getting stuck and needing to be rescued, and it's a hot fucking mess. They use everything shovels, picks, axes, uh the I told you about the torch that they were trying to use, uh hot water. They're using sand, sand. They tried to use hot water in sand, like which is which is standard for a chemical cleanup.

SPEAKER_02 50:24

And also because it's i i if you're especially if you pump it, uh huh, they might be thinking about using it as an abrasive. Well, here's the thing blasting it off of things.

SPEAKER_03 50:33

One firefighter gets the bright idea, let's try salt water.

SPEAKER_02 50:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:38

The bay is right there. Lo and fucking behold, it works.

SPEAKER_02 50:42

You make a shit ton of taffy.

SPEAKER_03 50:46

Delicious. Uh so the salt water works. They start, they pump, they pump millions of gallons of salt water right out of the bay, just straight into the city, just sluicing shit down. Like they're then now they're throwing sand on it and it's working, and they're just chasing it all back into the bay. The the the harbor that they have there is brown for months. And you have to think about this. This is Boston, right? Like you and I are probably thinking in terms of like uh the buildings and you know water table situation that we have down here, which is we live in swampland, so we don't have basements or cellars or anything.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 51:24

All of these people do. They all have basements and cellars that all of this molasses has settled into.

SPEAKER_02 51:31

I didn't even think about that.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

The mess. Oh my god. The mess. There's one dude I read, he can't because he popped up on every single like article and report that I found. And this guy is a banana vendor, right? He's like produce is his thing. Uh, so he wants he's got $4,000 cash stashed in his basement, and he wants that shit. I don't know why it's relevant that he's a banana vendor, but like all of all of the articles and reports on shit were like, and the produce salesman who specialized in bananas. And I'm like, okay, cool. Why?

SPEAKER_02 52:06

Uh he Well, it would explain why he had $4,000 in cash, though, because bananas were kind of difficult to get around the world.

SPEAKER_03 52:14

True. And that was that was like the extinct kind of banana, too.

SPEAKER_02 52:18

Yeah, that was um you make a lot of money with bananas, you know.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

So yeah, he like, and they have to like mine their way into his basement to get to like his little coffee can full of cash.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

That's some fucking Minecraft shit.

SPEAKER_03 52:30

It's insane, right? And like it's it's so sticky and it's everywhere. And like they finally get like the outside cleaned up with the salt water and shit, and like they've chased, they've sluiced it all back down into the harbor, and the harbor is like brown and smells like molasses.

SPEAKER_02 52:46

These fish.

SPEAKER_03 52:47

Dead, you know, dead. There was nothing alive in that harbor.

SPEAKER_02 52:50

That's how we got Swedish fish. Can you imagine? Like, Boston Harbor has had everything in it tea, molasses, blood. Yeah. We go, we we we we get a good like spice ship caught on fire and sinking into Boston Harbor, and we can have like some pretty good. I think that water might be just something different now, you know?

unknown 53:13

Dude.

SPEAKER_03 53:14

So to further to like try to like rein myself in here, because my my notes kind of detoured right about the time that I got to like them figuring out how to clean all this shit up. Because I was like, how the fuck did this shit happen? Because in 1919, this is when I said that this was the wild west of architecture, I truly do mean it. You could be Joe Schmoe and walk up to some guy advertising that he needed a builder, an architect, an engineer, and you could walk up to this this mook and be like, yo, I'm your man. And you don't have you don't have a degree, you don't have any kind of certifications.

SPEAKER_02 53:53

You say that at this time period, my great grandfather got his engineering degree through a mail order catalog.

SPEAKER_03 54:00

I rest my case.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Now he did do the work. Oh, yeah. He was an engineer, but like that's pretty accurate.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

Basically, yeah, like like this this is a time period where like your your architects don't even have to sign their plot their their blueprints, which is like a mandatory thing now. Like that has to be the first thing you learn. Yeah, that that has to be signed and sealed and like processed for anything. And dude, so when I tell you the next part of this, you're gonna be so angry. So USIA or the uh what was it, the Purity?

SPEAKER_02 54:37

Yeah, Purity Distillery.

SPEAKER_03 54:39

Purity Distillery, when they decided that they that they wanted this great big ass fucking tank, they were like, all right, we need somebody to be in charge of this. Hey, you and they pulled this guy out of their accounting department and put him in charge of this entire project.

SPEAKER_02 54:58

They pulled just because they wanted the guy, they wanted it to be cheap, so they got an accountant.

SPEAKER_03 55:03

Homeboy's name was Arthur Gell.

SPEAKER_02 55:05

What a name.

SPEAKER_03 55:06

Right?

SPEAKER_02 55:06

Is this how the gel pen was born?

SPEAKER_03 55:08

Alas, no. Uh, he was a company treasurer, i.e., an accountant.

SPEAKER_02 55:14

Yeah, make it cheap. That's exactly what this is.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

Yeah, this is they're playing fast and loose with fucking everything. They've got an accountant in charge of like the build of a tank that's gonna hold 2.3 million gallons of molasses to cut costs instead of getting a proper like, you know, contractor and architect and all of the people that know what they're doing. They hired fucking Arthur Gell from accounting.

SPEAKER_02 55:42

I imagine that because this is a time period where like finding a person to rivet steel is very easy.

SPEAKER_03 55:48

Now, this is also a time period where steel is kind of scarce because remember that we're coming out of World War One.

SPEAKER_02 55:56

Are you about to tell me some crazy shit?

SPEAKER_03 55:58

Yes. And I need you to brace to be angry.

SPEAKER_02 56:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 56:03

So in building this in this VAT, I found several studies, and it took me a hot minute of digging to find the information on this because like it really, despite the fact that all of this has kind of like a happy, like the public one ending, coming out of World War One, steel is kind of scarce because you know they're using it for planes, for ships, for all of the war stuff.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

Like guns, boats, all kinds of crap.

SPEAKER_03 56:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:30

Helmets.

SPEAKER_03 56:31

So they slap this vat together with subpar steel. Like they had one year.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

I I was straight up bracing for you to tell me that this fucking thing was made out of like sheetwood or some shit.

SPEAKER_03 56:43

Okay, it's not quite that bad.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

Yeah, you were just like subpar steel, and I was like, what the hell are you about to say? Give me a second. I made it from this guy's bananas.

SPEAKER_03 56:51

Like So not only was the steel that they used too thin by half of what it was supposed to be.

SPEAKER_02 56:57

Damn.

SPEAKER_03 56:57

Holy shit. Okay. But it was the but the stuff that they used was prone to cracking. The low magnesi, not magnesium, magnese.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:08

Maganese.

SPEAKER_02 57:09

Manganese.

SPEAKER_03 57:10

That's there it is. Thank you. I struggle with that one.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Making a kind of spring steel.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Uh the low manganese content of the steel caused the alloy to be brittle.

SPEAKER_01 57:20

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 57:20

Ironically, it is the same compound that was used on the Titanic.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

Where rivets broke. Bingo. Amazing. So the manganese steel for it, because like this is a bladesmith thing, right? Yeah. When you buy like a sword, a good one, right? A good a good blade, a lot of good blades are carbon steel with a manganese or silica content, right? It makes a tougher steel.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

It makes it, it gives it, it gives it more of the ability to flex and expand.

SPEAKER_02 57:51

Yeah, and that the most of that's in the temper, but the the the metallurgy of the steel matters. And if you don't have the extra stuff, you might end up with something that is just similar to like a plate steel, which is fine if it's super thick.

SPEAKER_03 58:08

But it wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 58:09

But it wasn't.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

And so like it was supposed to be this this thick, like it was this thick. That's so oh my god. So to quote myself here, my literal note down here at the bottom of my page, this bitch red flag AF from Go.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

That's so fucking funny. So I I I needed to know how big this fucking thing was. So I looked it up. At least this is the quick overview. Uh it stood 50 feet tall, 90 feet in diameter, and contained 2.3 million US gallons. At least according to the very quick overview. Um the tank was approximately 2.5 inches at its base and thickness. It was made of steel, designed to whole molasses, blah, blah, blah. It was built in 1945. Oh wow. It was our it was already years old by the time this happened. It was built in 1915 originally. That's fucking wild. God damn. So it was it's it's been creaking for four years. Yep. That just hit me. I read that and didn't register at first. It was creaking for four, it was leaking.

SPEAKER_03 59:20

Leaking, creaking, and for four years. All of that bullshit for four years. So when the project was completed, not a single licensed engineer had laid eyes on the plans. And all of the steel that was sourced to make it was subpar in the war scarcity. The tank itself never even was safely tested with water before it was filled with molasses. Like they didn't even do a capacity test on it.

SPEAKER_02 59:48

That's double crazy.

SPEAKER_03 59:50

That's illegal now.

SPEAKER_02 59:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:52

Um USIA ignored every complaint from the community and every warning from the people working on it about the tank pressing forward with operations anyway to meet the deadline of prohibition. Modern forensic analysis has confirmed that this shit was always gonna fail. Like Harvard University, uh, this is a quote from Harvard University uh structural engineer Ronald Mayville. Okay, this is like the first time that I have ever like cited and quoted a source on this entire podcast. So I need every one of you to be so fucking proud of me right now because I don't do this. But quote, not only was the steel used too thin by half of what it was supposed to be, um, but the stuff but the stuff itself was prone to cracking. The low manganese content of the steel caused the alloy to be brittle.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:52

And that is from Ronald Mayville himself.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:56

That's so fucking great.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

Oh so to not to make light of a horrible situation, but pop went the tank, and then everyone in power, you know, had the shocked Pikachu face.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:08

Alright, so apparently at parts of the tank, like as general all around, so that 2.5 is at the base. Yeah. It was a quarter inch.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:17

Yeah. Up like up there's parts of the middle and top, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:21

Yeah, a quarter inch thick is wild.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:24

You're okay. So for for our audience at home, your your the knuckle of your index finger should be like the second knuckle of your index finger, the flat knuckle, should be roughly an inch. So I need you to take that, take your knuckle, hold it out, and look at that shit, and then divide that space by four. And that's how thick the the steel, yeah, the brittle steel was around the middle and the top.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

About as thick as a writing pin.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:54

Yep. That's so unsafe.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:57

That's so fucking wild.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

That's so unsafe. And they didn't even fill they never, never, not once, filled that tank up more than halfway with water. They never filled, they never did the capacity test. It's insane, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:10

It's it's also double insane, because like I I know people whose job it is to take a little x-ray machine and go down pipes and check the metal for like weak spots. That's their whole job. That's all they do is they walk around and go like this and they x-ray the pipe to to look for weak spots in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:28

Well, I mean, we also live in in a in a plant town.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:31

Like we we we personally know the people that have like gone to trade school to do this shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:38

Yeah, and like some of the stuff that goes through the pipes is corrosive. Yeah. And so like they're looking for weak spots and inclusions that might have to be fixed so that they can shut the line down and replace the pipe. Tanks under this kind of pressure are usually very thick, and like the metallurgy of the steel is like it's tough. It's tough, tough.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:59

Yeah. Like, yeah, it's fucking a little bit more than a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:03

I mean, yeah, they couldn't get their hands on good quality metal for this because it was all probably going into tank armor.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:08

Then build multiple tanks. Don't do one big one. Because if you do if you do one, if you do like 12 little ones as opposed to one gigantic one, when that one, when that one or two little one bursts, your fallout's gonna stay inside of your grounds. Yeah. Right? Like that's all that's only gonna be your problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:28

And it it's they're doing this super fast because the only the other solution would be to barrel it all. But then you lose because it's sugar, it sticks to things. You lose it all in barrels. It's it's like Yeah, you you're right. Like that the only reason you would come to the solution of like, let me build a giant fucking vat uh to put all the sugar in, because it's gonna have its own problems being that big is that it's sugar. It's it's you're gonna have to empty it all the time. Yep, because it's gonna crystals are gonna form.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:57

Or you have to, or you have to have some sort of heating element on it at all times.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:01

That's circle it that's moving it around, or else God knows these cheap ass motherfuckers weren't gonna do it. Also, that would be like a a work of I mean, that would be good for now, but like in their day, that would be a marvel of engineering.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:15

But like we have established that not a single licensed engineer or architect laid eyes on any of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:22

This entire project was run by an accountant!

unknown 1:04:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:28

So angry.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:29

This is just conjecture. I don't fucking know shit. I'm not a metallurgist. I don't I don't do like iron fitting or you know, like like uh um what's the word I'm looking for here? That's not right. Welding? No, um iron workers, they put up like frames for things, right? Like big steel beam frames. Um they're boiler makers. That's what the word I was looking for that that build these kind of things, right? So that would matter in the days of like rivets, because nowadays they're like fitted together, they're welded together, and then the parts that are fitted are they have giant lag like lug nuts that go through them, and they're they're gasketed down.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:11

But the the irony of this conversation being I was watching uh disasters that befell modern marvels, and it was a bridge that crossed a creek built in like 1900 or something like that, that it was a marvel of its time because you know it was it was like 300 feet tall over this like creek bed, yeah, and it stretched for several miles, and it was it was a train bridge, so it was designed to be you know hefty and shit, and a fucking tornado took it out. Oh my god, sheared it off at the bolts at the bottom, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:46

That's cra damn, that sucks.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:49

Welcome to the the weird shit that is my YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

That's gonna be a uh episode at some point.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:55

Oh, yeah, I'll get you the name of it if you want if you want to look up look into it, but it was it was fucking Fascinating because like we we have bridges very similar to that in this area.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:05

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:06

Like the older ones that are that are now like you know, not I don't want to say defunct because they're still there, but we're not allowed to go on them anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

Yeah, there's one there's one right down the street from here where they built a new one and the old one's still over on the side. You know which one I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

I do, in fact.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:18

I'm not gonna give the town name five miles from my house.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:22

Yeah. But like um But yeah, the the bolts themselves.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:27

And then they're riveting, so like if the steel isn't tough, right? If it if it is prone to tearing or being brittle, you're running these rivets through.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

And you're just creating more weak points.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

Yeah, because they're on the edges. You rivet on the edges. So like it's like, damn, once this thing goes, it shatters. It's just gonna be open now.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:48

Uh this dude said it peeled up by like a banana, like.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:51

Yeah. Jeez. That's so much fucking weight. And then it's under pressure also. So like, damn.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:59

So we established that they did a myriad of things trying to clean all of this shit up, and we we we arrived at salt water and sand being the best solutions here. So by the end of it, 21 people had died. They didn't even find all of the bodies of the people that had died until like four months later. Because of the sheer how it spread. Uh so here's what happened afterwards. Like, once all of this was in the rebuild process and the cleanup and rebuild process, obviously the community itself is gonna like, hey, we got ants. What the you want ants? That's how you get ants. Um, mother, grill me a cheese. Uh, sorry, Archer. Anyway. Uh, so the community itself stood up and went, yo, what the fuck? We warned you that your shit was not good. And of course, immediately, what is what is what is the the defining defense of a of a corporation under fire?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:12

Oh man.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:13

Deny, deny, deny, deny.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:16

Yeah, and if you can uh try to feign bankruptcy or dissolve your company before you get sued. Oh like that's that's what they that's what they did in this day, anyways. Guys would go defunct and they would they would move all the assets to a different company.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:30

So what had happened was USIA's legal team was in motion almost as soon as the tank ruptured. Like the second that news hit the company that the shit had failed, they were already spinning a media like rebuff for it. And do you know what their initial defense was?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:51

What's up?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:52

Oh, you're gonna be so angry. That the tank had been targeted by anarch by anarchist terrorists.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:01

It was the lollipop guild, I tell ya. They live what the anarchist terror now that's d yeah, we're on the height of like socialism being a thing in the country.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:10

And because the the population there was primarily Italian immigrants, guess who they were trying to pick on?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

She there's a lot of anarchist Italians.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

It was the oh my god. Yeah, the it's the boogeyman of its day. Because we haven't quite gotten to like the Bolsheviks are a you know, like are are there, right? But like also the scary guys of their day were were French and Italian anarchists and labor movement guys that were coming over and and and a lot of Irish people too, right? The Molly McGuire's are doing their thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:49

That's so fucking that anarchist Italians dumped dumped 2.3 million gallons of molasses on top of their own community.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:01

That would have been a big thing too, because like World War I, right? The the black hand guys were all anarchist sympathizers. Yeah, that's so fun. Like, just what a fucking terrorist. Oh, they yes. That's the modern version, is it was yeah, Islamic terrorists.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:16

That's what they tried to do initially. They were like, oh, terrorists targeted us and blew it up. And uh so the community banded together, and this is this is one of the very first like big company like lawsuits, like the community come like like Aaron Brockovich.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:35

Like this this suit walked so Aaron Brockovich could run basically to take on this entire company.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:43

This will be a civil suit.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:44

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:45

And it is one of the first of this like magnitude of the entire community rising up to sue this company.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:52

Wrongful death, all kinds of shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

And they brought in they brought in like literal licensed experts and shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

Yeah, yeah. Because any schmuck, anybody who's ever riveted steel can be like, hey, look, uh, you put 2.5 million gallons of syrup in a shoddy built container.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:13

Listen to how sassy my fucking notes are here. Like, this is this is a direct read. Like, I normally like I make my notes so I can read them in riff as I go. Uh let me let me give you a direct read from my notes. Rather than fessing up to the 15 layers of fucking negligence, they immediately put out the explanation of terrorists, Italian anarchists, according to USIA's lawyers, had bombed the tank. Why? The first red scare. Anti-communist hysteria that targeted immigrants and various political radicals. Guess who primarily lived in the commercial lived on commercial street? Are you ready? Italian immigrants.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:51

Yeah, yeah, that's right. The result we we we were we wanted everybody else to hate you, so we bombed ourselves.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:00

Yeah, like totally, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:03

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:04

As a result, the community launched a class action lawsuit against US USIA. For six years, the legal battle raged, bringing in all sorts of like heretofore unseen evidence. Like they brought in licensed architects and like all sorts of experts and shit, and they used like real evidence, like pieces of the tank itself.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:27

Yeah. They would have just looked at the ripped rivets and went like, well, there's no giant bombhole in the middle of these rivets.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:33

So it took six years, but the people won. And like USIA USIA was found negligent and had to pay out uh to each and every family a grand total at the time of six hundred and twenty-eight thousand dollars or several million. Roughly about thirteen million today. Um roughly, roughly. I don't math well.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:57

Yeah, but some yeah, somewhere around there.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:00

And as a direct result of this entire kerfuff, uh I lost my place.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

Kerfuffles.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:11

And as a direct result of this entire catastrophe, the whole mess of new law, a whole mess of new laws came in came into being. Like all of those safety protocols and like like the laws, the laws, the law that we all know and like cling to to keep us safe on like building sites, like for everything, everything from houses to skyscrapers to fucking the water tower.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:36

Like two miles that way. All of that, all of that's like has now had to have certified experts. Yeah, because every single level.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:46

Any engineering firm that that here's what I literally what I would do, right? If if I were alive at this point and I was an engineer in that time, that's like free data that you're never gonna get again. Yeah. You you look at it and say, like, well, what went wrong?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:02

Everything. And like fucking everything went wrong.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:05

How did it break? Why did it break on like a on a math level, right? And then you don't do those things. So like Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:12

Like I said, this this this story was a fucking tragedy of just negligence after negligence after negligence. It all in the name of like saving time and making profit. And I I know, I know I know it it does it as as awful as it was, it does have a happy ending of that company shut the fuck down like two years after this. Like they couldn't Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

And they weren't making alcohol anymore. That's why they got fucked. They had no way to come back. Uh so yeah, and also anyone can make molasses, and most of it's made in Florida and Texas at the time, or probably Cuba actually, at the time, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:54

And then shipped in.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:56

Uh, but yeah, so the company like rock bottomed, bankrupted, KO. They're gone. And then we got all of the safety laws that are like a lot of which are still in effect today. Yeah. And so the people out of tragedy, the people fucking won.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:14

That's that's odd. Like, because I I imagine the first thing, right, is is that in a lot of our liquid holding tanks, yeah, they have a retention pond around them. They're they're there's not like a pond, it's just like a basically a concrete wall that over a large amount of surface, so that like basically like at a quarter full, this much liquid will go out this far, you know, like and there's this like kind of brick pool lining around the thing. And uh because you can math that. Yeah. Right? You can go like, well, this much volume coming out at this viscosity over this amount of surface.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:50

You know, like yeah, and arch and a circle are are architecturally the two strongest things.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:54

Right, you can really make these things quite quite tough.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:59

And it's not like the interior is explosive. It's not like natural gas or oil, right? You have to worry about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:06

But yeah, it's fucking it's fucking crazy that it took twenty-three people dying, 150 people hurt, and 2.3 million gallons of molasses escaping for safety regulations. Yeah. But then again, it's also tragic that it took an entire building burning down.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:30

Yeah, to get right. To get your basic your your basic building safeties and fire codes. And then it took like a room full of women, a factory floor full of women dying to get your basic OSHA rights.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:44

And rednecks shooting at Pinkerton guards with rifles and throwing dynamite at them to get your basic union labor. Everything. It's always like it's in the name of profit, just a little bit more.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:58

It's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:59

What's what's super stupid too? Like, yeah, so many liquor companies transitioned to bottling companies.

unknown 1:17:07

Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Like, if you were making a rum, we make sugar now, that's what we do.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:12

And uh, you brought up earlier that you thought it probably smelled amazing. Uh, apparently to this day, on hot summer days, it still smells like molasses.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:21

Oh, that's um yeah, because it's all in the sewers and everything. I mean, it's every fuck, it must have gone into everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:27

It did. It did. Cause like it was sticky. Like, I was reading, I was reading the uh the eyewitness reports to it, because there were shockingly a lot. Like I had to I had to paw through a lot of information to like pluck little pieces of it to keep this from running into like four hours of information because people were volunteering, like they it was not only like stop saying like it was not only uh various official peoples doing rescuing, like the community itself was coming together to volunteer to help people. And these people, once they were done there, they would rinse off as best they could, but they were still tracking molasses like deeper into the city, like phones and streets and like sidewalks. Uh, one store was complaining that like their door handles were so sticky. And phones and train cars, yeah. It was it was everywhere for months and months and months and months and months. Boston Harbor apparently was brown, like brown brown, for several seasons. And there was there was virtually no fishing there.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:37

No, because the diatomaceous life would have been pluming out of fucking control. Like there would have been like the there's so much just available energy in the water now, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:46

Just the ecological havoc of this, not only like on top of the catastrophe that was, you know, the loss of this this community's loss in general. Like that was not only human life, that was like various horses, pets, their homes, yeah, property. And this is already an immigrant community, largely. So, you know, you gotta think about they're they already don't have much, and then they've lost fucking everything. On top of family members, possibly, yeah, injuries, and then this company wants to say, Oh no, it's not our fault, you bombed us. It was meh. Shut the fuck up.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:24

Speaking of anarchism, uh like that's that's that's just one of those things that you're just like the the fear of losing your position in in a capital way, you know, like losing your your in a world that requires money all the time makes people complicit to a lot of shit. You know, like there's a there's a saying in like leftist communities that do actually lean anarchists, which is that like capital will make cowards of everyone.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:53

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:54

And like that's what it does. Like you get afraid that you're gonna lose your house, your car, your job, your all that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:02

Your livelihood and your way of life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:04

So a lot of times if a boss pressures you to do something that's kind of illegal, you probably will just do it. Because the risk reward factor of it is you know what I mean? Like it's it's just too disparate.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:16

So like it's like as someone that lives in a in a capitalist economy, like you know, that is that simply is our reality. Yeah. I see I see why you couldn't say no, but like But you still should. You should have.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:32

Also, the authorities should have been like alerted, but then again, what authority are you gonna go to at this point? Because the the the like the laws and safety protocols and shit that we know of that like you know that we would know to alert, yeah, don't exist yet.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:48

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:48

They only exist because of this incident.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:51

And and they're not really going to for a while. And we've learned on just doing the show, right? Like until the triangle happens, until the love canal happens, there's no fund. Yep. Superfund doesn't exist to clean up.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:04

The triangle shirt waist, the radium girls, and now the Boston molasses flood.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:10

Yeah, and like the the radium girls.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:11

And uh one of the one of the sources that I had, which, you know, yay me. Look at me all citing sources and shit. This is like the this is the episode. Look, Katie shows her work. Never fucking happens. Uh so it's a book called The Dark Tide, and it's by Steven Yeah, Puglio. It was it was one of one of the books that I pulled information from. Like I did a lot of uh like you know, scrounging around in newspapers and shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:38

And then I found this entire book and I pulled pieces from that because like it it was it was a comprehensive, like kind of first account. Dude, a good case study is so I mean, you'll learn things you never and then like have the fact that like like Harvard did a forensic study on this recently.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:57

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:58

It's fucking crazy. Right, Boston. Yeah, like it it was it was fucking crazy to me that like you know, modern forensics went, y'all fucked up. This is how you fucked up. We're gonna give you an entire report on how you fucked up.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:13

Ryan just got to wish witness me smashing my face into the microphone for intensity. I can feel my voice going.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:20

Um then a guy who was like, How you like them apples, and then walked out of the bar.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:27

So that's that's the I mean, sad, but also awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:32

Yeah, right, exactly. Like the things that came out of it, fantastic. You know, Picasso, I love it. Uh the fact that it happened, I'm so sorry. Uh so where where the VAT stood uh is now a baseball field, like it's a baseball diamond.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:47

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:48

Uh yeah, the community like came together to to kind of take that space over. Uh and there's there's a plaque in memoriam there of the people that lost their lives. It's fucking crazy, right? Yeah. And like, props to the community for like for clapping back, like as you should. Like, please do not take any of this shit lying down. And Ron, fucking remember that.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:17

We're old enough to remember that. I am I am a staunch believer in actions have consequences.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:22

Yeah. Yeah, they do, and in the modern sense, the person, and I truly believe in this case, if you make the active decision, if you're the it is the CEO or or the you know, whatever of the company, and then you make the active decision to go this on the cheap, and at any point somebody goes, This could be dangerous, and then you sign off on it anyways, because you want to save a buck, I think you're guilty of negligent homicide.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:50

So there are there are a couple of really like fantastic podcasts that I listen to to pull some of this information, like just to kind of understand it a little bit better. Because I know that our our podcast is presented in more of a conversational format, and like there are others out there that are more like academic and clinical. Uh, but one of the one of the great ones that I listen to, because I I absolutely had to refresh my memory this morning because all of this research was done three weeks ago, and then like an insane illness in between. So the podcast that I listen to, it's a little short clip, but it's really, really, really good. Um, it's about 18 minutes long, but it's uh America's Strangest Disaster, The Great Molasses Flood, History This Week. So massive shout out to them for putting it in a format that I could listen to while I was crocheting and trying to like understand what the fuck was happening. Because like I read so much about this, like so much. Like so much. Like I read that entire like Harvard report, forensic report that they did on that, which I learned some new vocabulary words.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:59

But uh listening to that podcast was fantastic. I don't know who their narrator is, but she is peak. Her voice is really good. So yeah, give them a listen, please. Um, but yeah, so that was the Boston molasses flood. That is, this is a uh subject that I have been dimly aware of for the last, you know, five, six years, and just never really gave it much attention until I decided, you know what? We're gonna get into this sticky mess. It's a very sticky situation.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:32

Dude, you're like tons can I pull off of this? For weeks, guys walking around just quick yes!

SPEAKER_03 1:25:38

Dude, it drives me crazy when my shoes do that for like five minutes. Yeah. So that that's the Boston molasses massacre.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:48

Um Yeah, the second one. Jeez.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:54

You guys have a rough out there.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:56

So, Boston, are you guys okay? Does it still smell like molasses? I'm so sorry y'all have to deal with that. The cat is chewing on my finger again. Yep. Um she's so sweet. So thank you for joining us on this adventure. I'm so sorry I still sound so rough, but uh better than I was.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:20

Uh I'm gonna think about this every time I put sugar into something now, be like, hey, one one day. Yeah. In the 1900s, 20 something, 23 people died.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:33

Yep, and 150 people got their got their bells rung by molasses. Fire station got trampled.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:43

Yeah. I look, in my perfect, chaotic, comedic-driven world, someone I love it when you get narrative. Someone's at work, they're going kind of slow, it's midday, they're kind of hungry, maybe, or maybe they just ate a lot and they're like kind of sleepy. Their boss looks at them, and and because it's winter, you're moving slow as molasses in January. BAM! And it's water as as 2.5 million gallons of molasses Kool-Aid man, it's fucking way through the city.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:18

Oh yeah. But in molasses.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:22

But in molasses.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:29

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:30

Somebody in Boston's getting attacked diabetes.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:35

Fucking diabetes by osmosis. All right. We're gonna riff on this for hours if we keep going. Thank you guys for joining us on this particularly sticky episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:46

The 20 foot wall wave of molasses crest down the street. Do you have diabetes? My name's Wilford Bromley.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:00

If you don't have diabetes, you do now. Oh, I say that. My husband has diabetes.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:06

Somebody was trying to give up sugar just a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:10

So much for that. It's in your house. It's in your shoes. It's in you. I got molasses on my crack.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:19

Everything's sticky.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:21

Everything. Ants. Ants.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:24

No, look. This is my last observation about this. The water pressure in the whole city would have like would have dropped because everyone's gonna be trying to take a bath or shower. Yep. Everyone's washing things.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:38

It's like that one episode of uh Pinky in the Brain. Where the whole world flushes the toilets at the same time. Do you remember that episode? Am I the only person that remembers Pinky in the Brain?

SPEAKER_02 1:28:49

I remember the sneezing powder episode where the Amish tell them that they're sitting on a load of fools' sneezing powder, not real sneezing powder.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:59

Alright, we're done. We're done. We're done. Thank you for joining us. We're out. Bye, guys.