The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-11-27
Street Transportation Tied Up
and a Series of Minor Dis
aSters Reported.
DAMAGE TO THE SHIPPING.
At Cincinnati a Resident Was Fright.
ened to Death by the Violence
of the Gale.

=
found Chicago cut off from all telegraphic
communication with the outside world,
and with very uncertain and inadequate
means OF transportation not only to other
cities, but to its own suburbs. The steam
railroads were blocked with drifts of wet
snow, while the cable lines made little
headway against the frozen slush, and the
trolley wires of the electric roads lay in
tangled masses in the streets shutting off
the motive power on the cars and men
acing the lives Of men and horses.
The telegraph and telephone companies
threw up their hands and admitted that
they had gone out of business-tempo-
rarily at least-and even the fre-alarm
lines, which are carefully guarded
against any ordinary contingency, had
gone down in the general wreck,
and orders were carried to the
various engine-houses by messengers.
There had not been such a general de-
moralization of telegraphic and intra-
mural railroad communication since 1888.
The trouble was due to a combination of
peculiarly unfavorable weather conditions.
Snow began falling Sunday night 1t was
of that peculiar putty-like consistency
W I
touched as if applied with a whitewash
brush. On Monday morning there was
thick coating of this sticky substance on
the walls of buildings, on the sides of
streetcars and on the clothing of pedes-
trians, while the wires of the telegraph
and telephone companies and the copper
conductors of the trolley lines had begun
to assume the shape and size of new
manila cables an inch in diameter.
Under foot the situation was eve
worse. The trampled slush was a
foot deep at the street intersections and
the sewer openings, blocked with mud and
debris since early IN the fall. did nothing
toward carrying off the surface water.
The sidewalks were slippery and the IN
wary pedestrian who stepped on coal
hole cover was sure to find himself on his
back in a mass of indescribabIe stuff OF
dirty grayish color. Teams of horses
fioundered and splashed through the half
melted snow and the snow-sweepers of the
streetcar lines contributed their quota to
the general unpleasantness Dy piling up
great windrows of slush in close proximity
to the sidewalks and over the street cross
ings. AS the day wore on the thermome-
ter rose slightly, with the effect of making
the streets even more impossible, and
toward evening a storm of mingled rain
and sleet set in.
The situation had thus become about as
disagreeable as it well could be; but the
actual damage was yet to come. About
o'clock the rain and sleet ceased, and the
sticky snow again made its appearance.
The temperature also fell perceptibly and
the snow froze to everything it touched as
it fell. The telegraph, telephone, trolley
and electric-light wires, already loaded
almost to the breaking point, rapidly in
creased in disaster, and as the wind rose
to a velocity of forty-fve miles an hour
spans swayed, wavered and finally gave
way, falling into the streets, blocking all
travel ana threatening death to passers-by.
Telephone wires broke under the strain
and fell across trolley lines. Great flashes
of vicious-looking blue and green fire
snapped in the air at the point of contact.
Ten-inch sparks cracked and sputtered in
the telephone exchanges and drove the
operators away from the switch boards in
the telegraph Offices. Hello 4" girls
screamed, superintendents swore, fusible
plugs melted like wax, and before 10
o o'clock the telegraph and telephone sys-
TENS were at standstill to all intents and
purposes. At midnight both telegraph
com panies admitted that they were abso-
lutely cut off from every point on their
systems.
AS for the transportation systems within |
the city, they gave the fight up at an early !
hour, and, except in few instances, |
were compelled to walk long |
or remain at the downtown hotels |
over night. Up to midnight twelve inches |
Of snow had fallen, the greatest quantity |
'or any twenty-four hours Of November |
ier twelve years past. Meantime the |
wires continued to tumble.
A Milwaukee avenue cable-car ran into |
broken telephone wire at Rohey street. |
In an instant the trolley current heated |
t white hot and the passengers rushed |
rom the car, while the motorman dragged |
he dangerous wire from the pole and
brew it into the street. At Thirty-first
street and Calumet avenue red
rot wire was drawn up to pole
md fastened with ropes. AtTwenty-sixth
street and Cottage Grove avenue and at
south Park avenue half dozen wires
yrithed and twisted in the air, sending out
green sparks as they touched each other.
All along West Twelfth street wires
harged with death hung in the air or
Yriggled along the ground. at the inter-
ection of Chicago and Milwaukee ave.
lues tangle of wires were down in the
middle of the street, emitting sparks and
blocking all traffic. All the switchboards
md instruments at the police stations
we're burned out early in the evening, and
It midnight, while a big fire was raging at
he corner of Randolph street and Wabash
venue, an electric-light current became
rossed with fire. alarm wire, burning out
he switchboard in the headquarters of the {
fire Department and cutting off all COM
nunication with engine-houses through
)ut the CITY,