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Giant Popsicle Melts, Floods New York Park

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BojTrek

Banned
Funny Stuff...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050622/ap_on_fe_st/popsicle_disaster

NEW YORK - An attempt to erect the world's largest Popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film — but much stickier.

The 25-foot-tall, 17 1/2-ton treat of frozen Snapple juice melted faster than expected Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with kiwi-strawberry-flavored fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.

Firefighters closed off several streets and used hoses to wash away the sugary goo.

Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world's largest Popsicle, but called off the stunt before it was pulled fully upright by a construction crane. Authorities said they were worried the thing would collapse in the 80-degree, first-day-of-summer heat.

"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the Daily News. "It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."

Snapple official Lauren Radcliffe said the company was unlikely to make a second attempt to break the record, set by a 21-foot pop in Holland in 1997.

The giant pop was supposed to have been able to withstand the heat for some time, and organizers weren't sure why it didn't. It had been made in Edison, N.J., and hauled to New York by freezer truck in the morning.
 
They never even got the thing off of the truck...

050622_popsicle_hmed_3p.hmedium.jpg
 

Ferrio

Banned
Mashing said:
Killing 21 people? HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU LET YOURSELF GET KILLED BY SOMETHING AS SLOW MOVING AS MOLASSES???


The molasses was very hot..... when it's hot it's got a low viscousity.
 

LakeEarth

Member
Mashing said:
Killing 21 people? HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU LET YOURSELF GET KILLED BY SOMETHING AS SLOW MOVING AS MOLASSES???
The logical answer is that it wasn't moving slowly. If figure when there's enough to make a 20 foot wave I'm guessing it isn't going very slowly.
 

Whimsical Phil

Ninja School will help you
Mashing said:
Killing 21 people? HOW IN THE HELL DO YOU LET YOURSELF GET KILLED BY SOMETHING AS SLOW MOVING AS MOLASSES???

Read.

Wikipedia said:
The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 to 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (60 km/h) and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue Elevated structure and lift a train off the tracks. Several nearby buildings were also destroyed, and several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet. Twenty-one people were killed and 150 injured as the molasses crushed and asphyxiated many of the victims to death. Rescuers found it difficult to make their way through the syrup to help the victims.

Can you run faster than 35 miles per hour? A couple million gallons of the stuff isn't that slow, apparently.
 

Mashing

Member
Ahhh, missed the link to the story. My, that sounds horrible. I'm trying to picture a tank hold that much molasses. My god.
 

Whimsical Phil

Ninja School will help you
Mashing said:
Ahhh, missed the link to the story. My, that sounds horrible. I'm trying to picture a tank hold that much molasses. My god.

Yeah, it's definitely not a way that I'd want to go -- smothered by candy. It'll be interesting to see what Boston does to commemorate the disaster's 100th anniversary on 1/15/2019 (the day after my birthday!). It might be worth a trip out there if they do something cool.
 
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