Dark Tide Page 12
Leeman stood in the center of the track, waving his arms frantically, screaming, “Stop—the track is down! The track is down!” Through the vestibule glass, he saw the look of disbelief on the engineer’s face, knew the engineer couldn’t hear him, but Leeman held his ground, standing on the track high above Commercial Street, the shredded track and snapped trestle behind him, a three-car train bearing down on him. Finally, Leeman heard the shriek of steel wheels on rail, saw the train slowing down to stop. The engineer opened the vestibule door and stepped out. Leeman turned and pointed northward, behind him, and shouted again: “The track is down—almost to the street. You can’t go any further. The goddamn molasses tank burst!”
He sat down on the tracks then, heart pounding, his entire body shaking. He looked down at the terrible, alien scene below him, the landscape covered with dark brown ooze that swallowed humans, animals, vehicles, and structures with equal ferocity. Raising his head, Leeman saw fire trucks and horse-drawn medical vehicles already approaching the wreckage.
He had just saved a train from crashing to the street below, and in minutes would help the shaken engineer lead his passengers to safety.
Martin Clougherty was sinking, drowning … smothering, but he didn’t know why or how. Awakened by his sister, Teresa, he had rolled over in bed, saw her heading toward the doorway, heard her scream, “Something awful has happened to the tank!” and then felt his bed overturn. He had had the sensation of falling overboard, had felt his head go under, and it was only then—when the liquid rushed into his nose and mouth, when he could taste it—that he realized he was immersed in molasses. He felt himself sliding downward, out of control, as though riding the churn of the most violent river rapids or being swept over a waterfall. Flailing, he battled the suction, struggled to lift his head out of the clammy molasses, used his powerful arms to break the surface, and finally, he breathed fresh air and actually tread molasses as he rode the pounding wave that dumped him into the middle of Commercial Street. The ride stopped then and Martin stood in chest-deep molasses, wood and debris pressing against his back and neck. He cleared his eyes and mouth, looked around and was stunned to see that his house had been swept into the street, smashing into the elevated railroad trestle, and splintering into pieces.
While horrified spectators look on, rescuers try desperately to save the occupants of the Clougherty house, which was torn from its foundation and smashed against the elevated railroad trestle by the molasses wave. Bridget Clougherty, sixty-five, was buried by debris and timber, and died from terrible injuries one hour after crews pulled her from the wreckage. Her son, daughter, and a boarder living in the house survived the disaster.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Noonan, Boston Fire Department Archives)
He struggled frantically to pull himself from the molasses, which clung to his pajamas and his hair like wet wool. He spotted what looked like a raft, waded through the thick molasses until he reached it, and heaved himself aboard. He realized the raft was his bedframe, but for now it provided him with a refuge from which to collect his bearings. Taking in the destruction around him, he called for his family, but no one answered. Then he saw a thin hand to his right, protruding from the molasses like a white stick. He lay down on his bedframe-raft, stretched his arms out and pulled the hand up … up, with all of his strength, the quicksand-like molasses fighting him the whole way. A head emerged from the dark sea and he saw that it was his sister, Teresa. She was choking and gasping, but alive, thank God. “Hold on, sis, I’ve got you—I’ve got you,” Martin cried, and with one mighty tug, he yanked her onto the makeshift raft. He wiped molasses from around her eyes and from inside of her ears, while she choked and coughed it from her breathing passages. Then he hugged her with his strong arms, their molasses-soaked clothing making a whapping! sound as their bodies came together. She was crying and he held her close, whispering in her ear, “Okay, it’s okay.” Then he looked into her eyes and said: “Stay here, you’ll be safe on the raft. I’m going to look for Ma and Stephen.”
He rolled off the bedframe, splashed back into the black ooze, and waded forward, pushing aside molasses-covered timbers and debris in a frantic effort to locate his mother and his mentally retarded brother.
Giuseppe Iantosca recoiled from the second floor kitchen window of his home, which looked out over Commercial Street. Giuseppe had been keeping an eye on his son, Pasquale, easily tracking him in his bright red sweater as he gathered firewood by the molasses tank. Then Pasqualeno had suddenly disappeared—a dark wall had consumed him as though he had never existed. The wave bore down on Giuseppe, too, and before he could cry out or move his feet, the older man felt the house tremble and he was thrown from the window and onto the floor. As he fell and struck his head, he saw his wife and children tumble to the floor, and then he blacked out. He awoke a short time later, bruised and shaken, saw his daughter comforting his wife, Maria, even as his wife was sobbing and screaming uncontrollably in Italian: “My son is lost! Pasqualeno is lost!”
Walter Merrithew barely had time to turn after the deaf-mute, Ryan, had screeched. Instantly, Merrithew had found himself in the middle of black muck, his eyes squeezed shut, preparing to die. For now he had survived. He was pinned up against the back wall of the freight shed, his feet three feet off the floor, by a wall of debris—timbers, freight cars, automobiles, a suffering horse struggling silently in the molasses. To his left, in the corner, the freight shed wall had opened up and he could see the harbor. He believed it was only a matter of time before the pressure from the mountain of debris burst the wall and carried him into the water. When that happened, he would either be pulled to the bottom of the harbor to drown amidst a tangle of wood and metal, or he would be injured when he tumbled into the water, with a chance to swim to safety.
Something had to give soon. The weight of the debris against his chest was crushing him, and his foot was somehow trapped, so that he could not move. He heard noises then, caught movement through the pile, and wiped away the molasses that had begun to crust around his eyes. Ryan, the deaf mute, was pulling debris away! Ryan was trying to shout again, calling for survivors, but Merrithew only heard a strangled whistle from the man’s throat, an eerie wheeeeeeee, wheeeeeeee, as Ryan worked.
“Back here!” Merrithew shouted. “I’m alive back here.” He knew Ryan could not hear him, but maybe the railroad clerk would sense a motion, a vibration, something that would indicate to him that a person was buried alive back here, at least until he cleared away enough of the mess and could actually see Merrithew trapped against the back wall. Merrithew’s hands were free, although wedged tightly against his body. He managed to bring them up directly in front of his face, and waved them back and forth with the hope that Ryan would notice the movement through the small openings in the wreckage. “I’m here, back here,” Merrithew shouted again.
No answer from Ryan—just the wheeeeeeee, wheeeeeeee, as he kept working.
Hurry, Merrithew thought. Damn it, hurry!
The fifty-six-year-old stonecutter John Barry heard moaning in the darkness, felt searing pain across his back and legs, smelled and tasted the sweet molasses as it tried to flow into his nostrils and mouth. He was pinned face down, his cheek mashed into the sticky molasses, only his left arm free. He used the arm as a sweeper to keep the molasses from smothering him. He tried moving other parts of his body, but other than his neck, which he could twist, he couldn’t budge. Whatever was pressing on his body was crushing the life out of him. It hurt to breathe, whatever breath he could draw seemed insufficient to fill his lungs, and he had to be careful not to inhale a mouthful of sticky molasses.
The darkness was total. The moaning continued, but he couldn’t tell from which direction, or from how far away. He heard a skittering sound. A rat? Oh, God, Barry hated the filthy rodents. Terror gripped him as he imagined a fat, hungry, gray water rat chewing at his face while he lay helpless, trapped in the blackness, buried alive. He called for help, his voice raspy. Could anyone hea
r him? Did anyone know he was there? He felt on the brink of madness, and with a mighty, panic-filled effort tried to lift his body, but to no avail. He had worked as a stonecutter since he was fourteen years old, but with all of his strength and his skill, he couldn’t lift a hammer or a blade or a chisel to help himself—he could barely lift his head to keep from smothering in molasses. John Barry knew he was going to die, here, buried under the firehouse in this dark stinking space, anonymous and unable to move, a pool of molasses ready to swallow him, rats ready to tear him apart, his screams falling on deaf ears. He would soon join two of his children who had perished from influenza last fall. But what would become of his other ten? Would they become wards of the state when their father was gone?
He began to itch all over and couldn’t do anything to stop it. He felt his body bleeding and could not stanch his wounds. His chest and back burned like they were on fire. He summoned up strength and cried for help again, and this time heard his voice resonate in the darkness. And then, a miracle: a response! He recognized the voice of firefighter Paddy Driscoll, trapped under here with him, one of the moaners he had heard. “Keep up your courage, John,” Driscoll said, his voice cracking. “They’ll get us out.”
John Barry tried to answer aloud, but could not. His initial shout for help had drained him of energy. Overcome with exhaustion and emotion, his broken body wracked with pain, he could barely manage a whisper: “I hope they hurry, Paddy,” he choked. “I hope they hurry.”
He lay sobbing in the darkness, tears streaming down his face, mixing with the molasses that stained his cheeks and threatened to drown him.
Lying just a few feet away from John Barry, though unaware of how close he was to the stonecutter, firefighter Bill Connor realized that there was only one way he and his buddy, Nat Bowering, could remain alive until rescuers reached them. Connor had just extricated himself out from under a steam column-radiator that had pinned him facedown in the molasses. He had managed to turn over onto his back, and there was Bowering, right alongside him, trapped by what once was a firehouse support beam resting across his midsection.
Connor looked up, and no more than a foot above his face were heavy joists and a wooden floor. He surmised that the full force of the molasses wave had slammed into the firehouse, torn it from its foundation, and caused the second story of the three-story building to pancake down on top of the first, creating this eighteen-inch crawl space in which they were now trapped. The molasses was rising—slowly, but rising—and it had reached their chins. Connor could see light, and the harbor beyond, through a small opening in the wall at Bowering’s feet. “For God’s sake, keep that hole clear in front of you,” Connor said. “Kick that shit away so the molasses can flow out.”
Bowering pumped his feet furiously, clearing the hole of sticks and wood and debris. “They will never find us here, Bill,” Bowering cried. “There is no possible chance for us.”
“Our only salvation is for you to keep that hole open,” Connor snapped back.
As the senior man of the two, Connor knew he had to remain calm, had to be the leader, the one that issued the instructions, until help arrived. Though the light was faint, Connor could discern that a collection of odd timbers, chairs, tables, the firehouse piano, and, several feet away, a billiard table, was supporting the second floor, now just inches above them, allowing them to remain alive in a cocoon of debris in this hideous dark place. Both men had bumped their heads hard on the collapsed first-floor ceiling trying to keep their noses and mouths above the molasses.
Molasses clung to him, to his clothes and his skin. It wormed its way under the collar of his shirt and into his hair. He tried in vain to wriggle his body to prevent molasses from seeping into his waistband, crawling down his pants, clinging to his private parts, like an army of insects that just kept coming. Bill Connor wanted to scream, but he fought the urge. He needed to block out thoughts of everything else except survival. After Paddy Driscoll had yelled at them to run, Connor had seen this black wall rushing at them, and it reminded him of boiling oil, curling toward them like a tidal wave. He hadn’t even thought of molasses at first. He and Bowering reached the door, both of them got their hands on the knob, but before they had time to open it, the molasses had surrounded the firehouse and snuffed out the light entirely.
The Boston Firehouse near the harbor, home of the Engine 31 fireboat, was pushed from its foundation by the molasses wave and nearly swept into the water. The second floor of the building pancaked onto the first, trapping for hours stonecutter John Barry and several firefighters, including George Layhe, who was pinned beneath debris. Layhe tried desperately to keep his head above the rising molasses, but his stamina gave out as rescue crews attempted to reach him, and he dropped his head back into the molasses and drowned.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Noonan, Boston Fire Department Archives)
That was all Bill Connor remembered for a while. When he came to, here he was, facedown under the building, a radiator across his back, Bowering trapped beside him.
“Kick again,” he said to Bowering. His buddy complied, his heavy boots knocking more sticks and debris from the hole to allow the molasses to flow out. Connor couldn’t reach the hole—he would have had to crawl over Bowering to do it, and that would have been nearly impossible in the narrow space. This must be what it’s like to be in a coffin, Connor thought, to be buried alive.
He heard a voice, a new voice, faint but clear. It came from the pool table, just barely visible in the weak light that trickled through the hole at Bowering’s feet. “Oh, my God,” the voice said. “Help me, Oh God.”
Connor recognized the voice. It was George Layhe, his good friend, the man who joined the fire department on the same day as he did. “George!” he shouted. “George, it’s Bill. Stay calm, George. They’ll get us out.”
“Oh, Bill, we’re gone,” George Layhe replied.
Connor could make out the pool table in the gloom, but couldn’t spot Layhe. Then he realized that Layhe was pinned under the pool table, desperately trying to keep his head out of the molasses, which had to be rising faster and higher away from the opening in the wall. “George, hang in,” he screamed. “Hang in, they’re coming, George!”
“I don’t think I can,” Layhe replied, his voice weak. “Oh, Bill, it’s too late. I’m gone—my God, I’m gone.”
“There goes poor George,” Nat Bowering wailed.
“Shut up, Nat!” Connor shouted to Layhe again: “Stay with me, George!” No response. “George, answer me!”
But Layhe remained silent.
Suffolk County medical examiner, Dr. George Burgess Magrath, had no idea what to expect when he arrived on the scene at around 1:30 P.M., but the destruction on and around the Commercial Street wharf shocked him. He had been performing an autopsy at the nearby North Mortuary on Grove Street, when he received word at 1 P.M. that the molasses accident had occurred. He suspended the autopsy, drove to the scene with his assistant, donned a pair of hip-high rubber fishing boots, and ventured into the carnage to lend his assistance.
He had been practicing medicine since graduating from Harvard Medical School in 1898, and had served as medical examiner of Suffolk County for the past twelve years, but nothing could have prepared him for what he saw at the Commercial Street waterfront. He had not served with the Army overseas, but had read of the ghastly deaths and seen photos of the destruction, and could not have imagined a wartime scene worse than what he witnessed here. The entire waterfront had been leveled. Every building in the North End Paving Yard and all of the Bay State Railway freight sheds lay in ruins. The large plate glass windows on the Bay State office building had been shattered and the furniture inside split apart, pieces of desks and chairs and cabinets swamped by the thick molasses. Boston’s only trolley freight terminal and most of its big steel trolley-freight cars had been destroyed. Freight wagons had been crushed, railroad boxcars split open, automobiles and trucks bent and broken as though they were children’s toys. The st
eel trestle that had supported the elevated railroad tracks had buckled like wet cardboard, and the overhead tracks dangled toward the ground.
Horse-drawn and mechanized rescue vehicles and firefighting equipment covered the waterfront and Commercial Street area, venturing as close as they could without getting stuck in the molasses, still knee-deep an hour after the initial wave. Firefighters, police officers, and hundreds of sailors and soldiers from the ships moored in the harbor swarmed over piles of molasses-drenched debris in a desperate search for survivors, more often making the grim discovery of bodies. Priests from the nearby North End parishes slogged through molasses in their long black cassocks and white collars, helping rescuers remove debris, comforting the injured, and performing last rites on the dead and mortally wounded. Rescuers loaded the injured onto wagons and into trucks for transportation to the nearby Haymarket Relief Station; many were swathed in white bandages that stood out in stark relief against the black molasses that saturated their clothing.
Rescuers with stretcher (foreground, right) negotiate mounds of debris to reach victims.
(Photo courtesy of Bill Noonan, Boston Fire Department Archives)
Dr. Magrath could see how the molasses wave had rolled over the waterfront, like a giant breaker at the seashore, scooping and scouring everything in its path, leaving destruction behind as it receded. He saw several poor souls being pulled from the molasses, later saying their bodies “looked as though they were covered in heavy oil skins … their faces, of course, were covered with molasses, eyes and ears, mouths and nose filled with it. The task of finding out who they were and what had happened to them began by washing the clothing and bodies with sodium bicarbonate and hot water.”