Engineering Ethics: The Great Boston Molasses Flood (Video on Demand)

In Engineering Ethics: The Great Boston Molasses Flood, you'll learn ...

• How an engineering student potentially saved thousands of lives by discovering a design flaw in New York City’s Citicorp Center
• How the site selection process ultimately led to the large number of casualties
• How project schedule constraints contributed to the disaster
• Why the tank was not thoroughly leak tested

Overview

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Credit: 1 PDH

Boston is home to much history and folklore. And, sometimes the history of the city sounds like folklore. One example is the case of the Great Molasses Flood. To those who have never heard an account of this disaster, it sounds too strange to be true. But, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction

On January 15, 1919, following the failure of a storage tank, a wall of molasses 15 feet high flowed through the North End neighborhood of Boston at a speed of up to 35 miles per hour. The force by which the gooey substance moved was enough to sweep away cars and trucks, demolish buildings and even take out one of the supports for the elevated train that moved above the city.

The Great Molasses Flood caused the death of 21 people and killed countless animals. In addition, 150 people were injured. Although memories of the disaster eventually faded away, the smell of molasses would remain in the North End of Boston for decades.

This ethics course will look at how the pre-World War I environment in Boston’s North End resulted in the tank being located in such a densely populated area. We’ll see how the project’s almost impossible schedule contributed to the disaster. We’ll learn about the manager of the project, and how his education and work background left him ill-prepared to take on such a task.

We’ll see how an unusually high ambient temperature swing contributed to the tank’s failure. We’ll also discuss how the tragedy impacted the engineering profession, as well as industry as a whole. Finally, we'll discuss lessons to be learned from this incident which are still applicable to executing projects a century later.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:

• Explain how the site selection process ultimately contributed to the large number of casualties.
• Describe how project schedule constraints contributed to the disaster.
• Explain why the tank was not thoroughly leak-tested.
• Identify the unique weather conditions that precipitated the tank rupture.
• Describe the warning signs that company managers did not heed.
• Explain why out-of-specification material was accepted by the project and how it affected the tank’s factor of safety.
• Analyze why building codes, inspections, and permitting processes failed to prevent the tragedy.
• Summarize the lessons learned from the tragedy and its long-term impact on the engineering profession.