Great Molasses Flood of 1919 - Molasses and Munitions

521 Commercial St

Part of the war efforts in World War 1 & 2 involved producing gunpower. At that time the US Naval Institute states the process to manufacture a pound of smokeless powder required .67 lbs of cotton, 3.14 lbs of mixed acid, and .75 lb of alcohol. Every 16-in gun blast burned up to 60 gallons of alcohol in its powder. This made for some thirsty guns and some hurried work. The shoddily constructed tank held molasses, which was a byproduct from the southern sugar industry, and a great source for cheap ethyl alcohol production. It collapsed spectacularly in 1919 and caused extensive damage leading to legislation changes to prevent similar industrial disasters.

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THE MOLASSES TANK

This tank was built to hold 2.5 million gallons of liquid and measured 50 ft tall and 90 ft in diameter. On Jan 15.1919 it burst and over 2 million gallons of thick liquid poured out like a tsunami wave, reaching speeds of up to 35 miles per hour. The molasses flooded streets, crushed buildings and trapped horses in an event that ultimately killed 21 people and injured 150 more. The smell of molasses lingered for decades.

There were various factors leading to the collapse, among them: flawed steel, safety oversights, fluctuating air temperatures, and the principles of fluid dynamics.

A study in 2014 found the steel walls too thin, and the rivet design flawed. Both were signs of negligence as structural engineers knew better at the time. However, it was an accountant in charge of the project with no engineering oversight. The tank had been built quickly in the winter of 1915 to meet rising demand for industrial alcohol, which could be distilled from molasses and sold to weapons companies, who used it to make dynamite and other explosives for use during World War I.

And instead of inspecting the tank and filling it with water first to test it for flaws, USIA (US Industrial Alcohol aka the owners) ignored all warning signs, including groaning noises every time it was filled. There were also obvious cracks. Before the tank blew, children would regularly bring cups to fill with sweet molasses that dripped out of it. Two children died from doing just that.

“When a laborer brought actual shards of steel from the tank’s walls into the treasurer’s office as evidence of the potential danger,” Rossow wrote in a 2015 analysis,“ he replied, ‘I don’t know what you want me to do. The tank still stands.’” What engineers didn’t know at the time was that the steel had been mixed with too little manganese. That gave it a high transition temperature, making the metal brittle when it cooled below 59°F. The air temperature on the day of the disaster was about 40°F. Its brittleness might have been a final straw of all the involving factors. A similar flaw befell some of the early Liberty ships built by the U.S. during World War II.

Temperatures dropped at night causing the liquid to become increasingly viscous and difficult to remove. It took 5 days to clear enough molasses to cut the tank remains to look for victims underneath the wreckage.

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THE MOLASSES AS ALCOHOL

As for the alcohol itself, the production remained high through both World Wars. USNI (US Naval Institute) said "In the year ending July, 1913, there were 965,000 pounds of this reworked powder made. In that same year our factory turned out 1,800,000 pounds of new powder and at present date, January, 1914, is making 11,000 pounds per diem." That leads to the estimate that smokeless powder produced prior to Jan 1914 had used 2,073,750 lbs of alcohol.

In early January of 1942 OPM (Office of Production Management) ordered US distillers to stop making neutral spirits for beverages and start running 60% of their capacity towards industrial alcohol. US liquor companies assisted by taking contracts for 190,000,000 gallons during World War 2. There was a total US industrial alcohol production of 500,000,000 gallons during WW2. OPM's order was designed to relieve not only a looming smokeless powder shortage, but the sugar scare. Most ethyl alcohol is normally made from molasses, a by-product of sugar. To increase their production, however, the regular alcohol makers had been using not just blackstrap molasses but whole cane syrup (high-test molasses), thus cutting into the sugar supply.

With rationing in effect, the public worried over their ability to imbibe spirits. Times reported that U.S. distillers had over 500,000,000 gal. of whiskey in warehouses, or four years' supply. Furthermore, though forbidden to make neutral spirits for gin and "blends," distillers could still make 100,000,000 gal. of straight whiskey in 1942, or about ¾ of the projected annual usage.

This is one of the many connections of how America and Britain forgave the past and became allies during the World Wars, solidifying them into the prophesied Anglo-American World Power as described in Daniel.

-Source Links-

https://www.scielo.br/j/jatm/a/F5jvxSkXkVgq7ZTVMmbHjnR/ (formula information – Paul Vieille Poudre B)

https://www.history.com/news/great-molasses-flood-science

https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,766349,00.html

https://www.nytimes.com/1942/01/09/archives/opm-order-puts-distillers-60-on-war-alcohol-liquor-industry-to.html

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1914/july/development-our-navys-smokeless-powder

https://usnhistory.navylive.dodlive.mil/Recent/Article-View/Article/2686883/a-sticky-situation-the-navy-and-the-great-molasses-flood/

https://www.census.gov/history/www/homepage_archive/2019/january_2019.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder