What A Sweet Disaster

This happened over eighty years ago, but is still the best disaster I've ever heard of:

The Boston Molasses Disaster

Basically, due to shoddy safety work, a 2.5 million gallon tub of molasses burst in downtown Boston, releasing a 15 foot high, 35 mph wave of molasses that tore threw buildings, and knocked the Boston El train right off of its tracks.

It also killed 21 people, and injured 150 others, but let's not dwell on that too much. I have to think that seeing a tidal wave would elicit a reaction something like, "What is that, molasses?" And then its all over.

It took six months to remove all the molasses from the streets.

The thing that I find particularly unbelievable is that the name sounds like a cutesy children's novel. Here's some other possible titles in the series:

- The Chicago Kitten Conundrum
- The Santa Fe Rainbow Mystery
- The New York Knife Murders

Maybe not the last one.