The Great Boston Molasses Flood vs. The Boston Marathon Bombings

      When I first started reading Dark Tide an interesting line in the book stuck with me while I kept reading. In the author's note Stephen Puleo wrote "To understand the flood is to understand America of the early twentieth century." I feel like this can also be said to understand many national or international incidents that happen, the history can show many factors and reasons.
      I was trying to think about another disaster while I was reading "Dark Tide" and I began to find similarities in the Boston Marathon bombing. In comparing the Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 to the Boston Marathon Bombing of 2013, I can easily say that the location was similar. During the time of the flood World War I was going on in Europe which caused controversies. The war in the Middle East is still going on, and was during the time of the Boston Marathon bombing. In both events there are people to blame; obviously the bombers are to blame in the bombings. In the flood you can put some of the blame on Mr. Jell, but also on the people of the North End who kept quiet.
      Throughout the Boston Marathon bombing many people focused on the first reactors and how immensely they helped without thinking. In the Molasses flood many people first ran like many people at the Boston Marathon did, but there were still many people who ran to help. In both dangerous incidents the danger did not scare some people. These people made a difference
      In the Great Boston Molasses Flood there were twenty one people killed and 150 people injured. In the Marathon bombing three people were killed and 264 people were injured. These numbers were different, but they were also not a huge number of casualties compared to other national or international incidents. For the most part these events were unexpected. The bombings were a complete surprise. The flood was unexpected because they did not know when the tank was going to bust, but they knew it eventually would. In both incidents innocent people were injured or killed, and a city was ruined. The damage was physical and emotional. For both incidents the aftermath was similar. There were family members and friends that had the terrifying feeling of not knowing the outcome.
            There were different things too. The places were different, although very close. Also the time was almost one hundred years different. The flood was a more natural incident; it could almost be called an accident. In contrast the bombings were not an accident and there was a motive to the bombers. There were also many other aspects to the incidents that were different.              I was not sure if I wanted to compare the flood to the bombings, because it is still a hard topic to discuss for some people, but that was also true for many people at the time of the molasses flood.