Summary

On January 21, 1919, a strange disaster occurred in Boston's crowded North End: The Great Molasses Flood. Molasses was a valuable commodity at the time and 2.3 million gallons of it were being stored in a tank in North End Boston. Few people knew that the tank was built "hastily and carelessly" by its owner, the United States Industrial Alcohol Company (14). Around noon on January 15, the tank exploded, sending a flood of molasses through the neighborhood. Moving in waves as high and 30 feet and estimated to have been moving at 35 miles per hour, the molasses destroyed everything in its path including homes and the nearby elevated railway. Many humans and animals alike were killed in the flood.

Sandler then tells personal stories from the perspective of some people who lived through this flood. Brakeman Royal Albert Leeman had to stand in the railway...