Going into Stephen Puleo's Dark Tide, I was expecting the justification for calling this event a disaster to be a high number of deaths resulting from the 2.3 million gallon molasses tank failing and flooding the streets of Boston's north end. So for that reason I was surprised to see the total number of deceased civilians was 21. This is not to say their deaths were insignificant, but after the 86-page preamble to the tank bursting during which the rampant overcrowding in the north end was described, I predicted the death toll to be in the hundreds.
After reading that a major contributor to USIA's success branched from producing munitions during World War I and alcohol prior to that, I figured that perhaps the disaster would be an economic fallout for the city after such a tremendous loss of product. Yet again though, I concluded this was not likely to be the reason due to the end of the war and the passing of the 18th amendment, prohibition.
Later in the book, I encountered what I thought was the most likely contender for why this flood reached disaster status. Following the tank's failure, there seemed to be a spike in anarchist related terrorism that followed. There were bombs planted and detonated in, "Boston, Washington, New York, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Patterson, New Jersey" (Puleo 150). In addition, there were strikes in several different trades ... even the police struck in some cities.
Then of course there is the culmination of all these factors wrapped into one. The deaths, injuries, damages (which cost over a million dollars, a fact revealed during the four year trial which eventually held USIA liable. The trial was a massive expense to the city as well), anarchist activity, and economic impact all together are certainly more than enough to qualify this molasses flood as a terrible disaster in Boston's north end.
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