Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-12-18
THE WIRES IN A SNARL.
TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMMUNI-
CATION CUT OFF.
Poles Broken Down and Their Burdens
Dumped in the street-Over Five Hun
dred Telephones Rendered Useless by
the Storm-The Electric Lights.

Tulneu. Ine superintendent Oh Tue OenuaA
District and Printing Telegraph Company
declares that never was such havoc played
with Pittsburg's wires. Out Penn avenue
the wires were in bad shape, but were not to
be compared to those on Second avenue.
Scarcely wire escaped on that line. Poles
were snapped off just below the wire arms
and were down in the streets endangering
the lives of passersby.
"We never had such case" said the
Superintendent, "and we hope never to have
another storm like it. Our Second avenue
lines could not possibly be repaired and we
just cut the wires and cleared away the
debris as best we could without figuring to
fix them up. Hundreds of wires are down
in all sections of the city, and the amount OF
damage cannot be estimated. It will re-
quire weeks, perhaps months, to repair the
damage done, and it will almost be as bad
as putting in an entire new system"
The telephone operators had great time
doing duty yesterday and their watchword
seemed to be: ''That line is out of order to-
day." They seemed to have more lines out
of order than those prepared for business.
Those in the business portion of the city
were in pretty good shape as a rule and that
saved lots oftrouble.
The Southslde showed some Of the worst
wrecks of the two cities in the way of tele-
phone business. The wires were twisted
into great tangled mass. The poles were
broken and bore the wires with them in
their fall to the pavement.
The Trouble in Allegheny.
Back in the rear room of the Allegheny
Telephone Exchange was found in his shirt
sleeves, ]. D. Longmore, Superintendent of
the company in Allegheny. He was almost
discouraged. The wires were down and the
subscribers were saying rough things to the
girls.
'Just to illustrate" said he, son San
dusky street within few blocks there are
seven poles down. So heavy were the wires
with the accumulated snow that in forcing
down one pole it was broken into three
pieces. That was done by pure dead weight.
The tiny little fakes of snow falling one
upon another fro1e, and then the weight
upon Tie wires, as you may imagine, was
something terrible. They simply sagged
and then broke.
"AlI the linemen had been called in and
put to work. All the good work they could
do would not put the wires to rights in q
week. The money damage was something
that could not be sized up.''
At this point Mr.. Longmore wanted to
show just how they had been knocked out.
! even beyond the storm, by strongly charged
wires Of the Electric Light Company and
the trolley of the railway companies. In
| the rear of the telephone room is a board,
with little pegs in it, that looks like a
switch board. 1t is what is termed light
ming arrester.
Beginning about 8 o'clock Yesterday
morning these little pegs began to spit out
fire with reports like those of toy pistols.
Every report meant that lightning ar
rester had been knocked out At one time
ten of them went off in bunch.
Crossed the Street Car Wires.
"Now." said Mr.. Longmore, ''the fact of
the burning out of these little pegs shows
that our wires had come into contact with
those possessing greater power. the electric
light or street railway wires. When we
found that our wires would not work we
asked the electric light people to turn off
their current and they did so, in order to
help us out. Allegheny has never seen
such storm. that is. the people who now
depend upon the telephone have never been
put into such position"
Hundreds Of people were stopped yester-
day afternoon in front of the Allegheny
depot of the Fort Wayne road by the pc
culiar antics of the big mass of wires that
cross Federal street at that point. Every
few minutes there would be a spit OF fire,
followed by short, quick report, like the
firing OF musket at distance. People
feared to cross the street and stood in
hundreds on the sidewalk until venture
some lineman climbed pole and separated
two wires that had sagged together.
Telegraph communications Wanting.
The telegraph wires were in as bad shane
as those of the telephone companies. The
trouble all seemed to be in radius of 20
miles, or at least it so appear to the line
men at work on the lines connecting Pitts
burg. The manager of the Postal Telegraph
Company returned yesterday from a trip to
Youngstown. He said the storm was
only slight out in Ohio, and it was
not at all general % miles west
of the city. He declares that this
is the first time Pittsburg has ever been the
seat of the trouble in the telegraph business
However, he got his men out early, and
they soon repaired great deal of damage.
The wire to New York was around
by Buffalo. The Harrisburg and Altoona
wires were gotten into condition after
great deal of trouble, but communications
with Philadelphia were very difficult The
Southern and Western wires were in good
shape. Communications received at that
Office say that snow is over two feet in depth
in the mountains and is still falling.
The Western Union people were in no
better condition to communicate with the
outside world than their rivals. At $3.50
o'clock a telegram was received from their
chief lineman saying that there was nothing
OF an encouraging nature to report. The
only line of any account was that to New
York. West and North nothing could be
done. Operators of this company declared
that they were bothered more yesterday
! than ever before BY wires whose connections
were broken in the vicinity OF Pittsburg.
Often wires are down in other cities, causing
trouble here, but the cases of bad connec-
tions in this city are rare.
Police and Fire Connections.
Superintendent Morris Mead had his full
force OF IL men hard at work all day and
last night making temporary connections OF
the fire alarm circuits that had been broken
down by the weight of the snow. The tele-
graph companies loaned few men to assist
in the work and it was expected that about
midnight every fire alarm box in the city
would be in working order. Yesterday
morning there were nearly $50 alarm boxes
rendered temporarily useless by the break
ing OF the wires to Hazlewood, East End,
Southside and Lawrenceville, but Mr.. Mead
said these woald be all right before morn
ing, and only box here and there would
need further attention.
The police telegraph system is completely
paralyzed. and will probably not be in per-
feet order for several days, as the fire alarm
wires are the most important, and will be
attended to first. Such repairs as are being