Before the Bay Street line went out, communications had opened down California Street. After that, sometimes the telegraph wire's worst enemies were human. Men dynamiting walls for firebreaks knocked out the line. Telephone and electric men cut the line by mistake as they worked to restore their own connections. But a break was no sooner reported than fixed, and the line never stayed down more than half an hour at a time.
Women cook in the streets after the earthquake.
The mayor asked people not to cook in their broken chimneys until they could be inspected, for fear of another fire. A car much like the one the Signal Corps would have used in 1906. The 10 men working for Western Union were as brave as the signal soldiers working on the streets. All together, Captain Wildman and his soldiers set up 42 telegraph offices and 79 telephone offices that connected all military districts, federal buildings, railroad offices and depots, offices of the mayor and governor, and other places. When orders were issued April 22 dividing San Francisco into districts, with six different headquarters spread throughout the city, Signal Corps men took only three hours to connect each headquarters with Department of California headquarters at Fort Mason.