Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1911-09-15

DE[UCE Of MOLASSFS
IN OLD new ORLEANS
Big Reservoir Bursts, Flood
ing Whole Section of City
With the Sticky Syrup
MOST PECULIAR DISASTER
Streets Run Fifteen Feet Deep,
Houses Inundated, Drays Over
turned, Water Mains Burst

New Orleans, Sept. 12.-Resident
of the vicinity of Market and st.
Thomas streets were overwhelmed
yesterday by great tide of molasses
that flowed out of the largest mo-
lasses storage depot in the world and
turned streets, yards and houses into
sticky mass with which the people
and the city officials wrestled vainly.
Today they still are wrestling,and
it will be Wednesday before the
neighborhood is cleaned up.
Shortly after noon the warehouse
of the Sugar Planters Storage and
Distributing Company burst. The
warehouse" was a reservoir used
by the old municipal water works
plant. 1t covered more than a
block. The walls are twenty feet
high and of brick reinforced with
steel and concrete. The great
weight of the molasses is supposed to
have caused them to give way.
With a roar a piece of the wall
twenty feet wide broke. The sticky
fluid rolled out in the vast gush and
spread In all directions. Its depth
after leaving the reservoir was more
than fifteen feet and it reached Ma
gazine street, at third of mile away,
with depth of ten inches.
The quantity flowing out was more
than a million gallons of crude mo-
lasses and the property loss to the
company alone is about 100000.
To the city and to individuals and
other corporations it exceeds $780,
900.
The weight Of the molasses came
upon two big water mains and the
heavy pipe crumpled, adding great
streams of water to the molasses and
swelling the volume of the food.
Two boilers just beyond the walls,
weighing fifteen tons each, were car
ried hundred feet, and one was left
standing on end.
Men and women, overtaken in the
streets, were rescued with difficulty,
and many who fell barely escaped
suffOcatiOn. Two fire horses dragaed
a hose cart until they were leg deep
in the stream then refused to bulge.
An hour later they had to be pried
n11f yUhi1o o&
their traces.
Buckets, barrels, pals, everything
that would hold it, were used by the
thrifty to swoop up the syrup. Wo-
men whose bedding, clothes and floor
coverings were ruined congratulated
themselves that they had something
to offset the increased cost of living.
Urchins, warned by the police to
keep out of danger, smeared the blue
coats until they were the most "stuck
up coppers in the world.
Today a new menace came with
the flies. 1t seemed that every fly
in prolific Louisiana had gathered
in the inundated region and had de-
cided to stay there. Many residents
started fires of odoriferous sub
stances in an effort to keep the pests
away, but still more came.
That there was no loss of life is
remarkable. A child sleeping on the
floor of one house was found licking
the molasses and was caught up by
the mother just as the volume of the
syrup stream. 'oured through the
door, striking the babes mother
above the knees.
Two drunken men who had re-
tired upon the floor of a barroom
awoke to find themselves coated from
head to foot with molasses. Where
big boilers were thrown across the
street dray was struck and over
turned. the driver being thrown ten
feet He escaped with minor bruises.