Evening star., 1896-10-08
HELLO, HELLO, THERE.
Great Damage Done to the Telephone
Service Here.
A HUNDRED POLES BLOWN DOWN
Some of the Troubles Of the
Conduit System.
PRESIDENT BRYAN TALKS
PRESIDENT BRYAN TALKS

PRESIDENT BRYAN TALKS
The telephone service OF the city has not
yet recovered from the serious blow in
flicted by the storm that ragged over the
eastern section of the country last week.
Complaints Of bad service are constantly
being heard, and are as often received by 4
the officials of the telephone company. who
are having, according to their accounts, the
hardest experience they have known since
the organization of the company.
Some of the most important circuits In
the District are entirely useless, and prac-
tically all of the suburban service is Grip
pied. 1t Is next to impossible to get word
to subscriber in the country. and even In
the heart of the city scores OF telephones
are wholly cut or The Hello girls are
finding their patience sorely taxed from
hour to hour, as the angry citizens vent
their feelings over the wire and cast asper-
sions upon the management for the delay In
re-esta blishing communication between the
| thousands Of phones in service in the Dis
trict.
A Star reporter this morning asked Mr..
S. NJ Bryan, president of the telephone
company, as to the present state of things.
and received full and ready reply. Said
Mr.. Bryan:
What Mr. Bryan Says.
This was by far the worst thing that
| ever happened to US. Never before was SO
much damage done to the telephone service
| by any one cause, and 1t has taxed our en-
] ergies and our resources to the utmost to
| cope with the emergency. If ii had not
been for our great store yard of poles. con-
| tanning hundreds of the finest sticks to be
| found, we would be in terrible shape, but
| as II is. by drawing on this reserve. which
| Is larger. I'll venture with confidence to
| assert. than the stock of any other teie-
| phone company in the country, we have so
| far managed to do very we'll, considering
all the adverse circumstances. Practically
all our branches were crippled Tuesday
| night. The great line of poles on B street,
| adjoining the Smithsonian grounds be-
tween 10th and 7th streets. was wrecked,
| together with the hundred wires that those
poles carried. Then, too there were poles
blown down in all parts Of the city. two
lines on Capitol Hill and two in George
town. besides individual poles on all streets.
These poles, you remember are the dis
tributors. feeding the system from the con-
duits, that, OF course, were untouched by
the storm, although they have troubles Of
ID their own.
Il estimate that in round numbers there
I were fully one hundred poles broken blown
| down. or crippled in other ways. In addi-
| ton to this trouble there were hundreds of
instruments put out of service by the cross
Ing and the breaking of wires. owing to
l
THE poles, however, were our main
trouble. 1t would have been Comparative
. ly easy for US to put the instruments in
circuit again had it not been for the fall
ing OF the carrying sticks. But ii was
useless for us TO repair small damage,
such as the break of single wire, when
, in the next block the entire feeding line
, of wires a ruin. We had to begin
at the bottom and rebuild our founda-
tion, and that work is very nearly
dore. The morning after the storm there
| were fully one thousand telephones out OF
service. That number has been gradually
reduced and last night when l left my
office it was reported to me that there
were only five hundred useless instruments
and the way was being cleared very rap
idly. l think that by the end of the week
we shall be entirely out Of the woods.
Great Work Done.
THE people generally do not realize wha,
great work it has been to replace the
broken poles. They imagine that it can he
done in a few hours, forgetting that it is
work requiring skilled men, who are
not easily found. Perhaps it will open tn.
eyes of the folks Of Washington little
tc know that in addition to all our force
here l have called to this city practically
/ | all the men of the Frederick division anf
n | the city of Baltimore, and have engaged
every hand that we could find, so tha
Q | today We have from fifty to sixty men il
I the field, rigging the poles as fast as tn
i public safety will permit. You see, hast!
: or careless work in erecting heavy pole
I might mean the loss of many lives, no
only among our own workmen but ais,
among the public generally. Even will
| great care the men are sometimes killed
and 1t would be criminal to engage larg
gangs of pole-hoiSterS without experience
for scores Of lives might be sacrificed IL
consequence.
: "Speaking> of our reserve stock of pole
1t will be just as well to consider the fac
that to secure a good telephone pole. sa
- | seventy-five feet high, is the work some
times Of months. In the first place tn
: | woodsman has got to pick his timber afte
| careful survey and must then fell it, trir
Z it, snake it to a river or a :'ailro1d an
h then have 1t hauled to one of our stations
l. To secure the poles that we aave foun
necessary to replace the damage done b
last weeks storm would without acces
/ to our store yard have been a matter Q
:, three or four months at least. OF course
g the keeping of such stock on hand mean
d heavy expenditure, but this emerGenc
!, proves tie wisdom of the outlay.
Much of the damage done IS total los
to US, for many of the poles are broke
Il off in such a way to render them who'll
= useless in the future. In addition TO thi
y loss we must enumerate the hundreds {
s wires that were SO broker and tangled b
r the fury of the storm as to be entirel
o unserviceable. We have sold hundreds {
v pounds of the best telephone wire jun
a during the past few days. OF course, th
J. Is another source of delay, the Straighter
ing out Of tangled circuits and to thos
n alton it is a marvel that we have bee
l. able to get on cur feet again in such shol
l. season.
'r Overhead Wires Suffered the Damag
le "Of course, all the damage done by Tue
l. days storm was caused t. the overhea
wires or distributing circuits, such as
u, ~ have said before feed the system from tt
Ie conduits. OF course, it is natural que
Id tion why we do not put more of our wire
es underground, and SO reduce the possibilit
y. of damage and delay caused by atmo
?e pheric disturbances. The nsver to tn
II question is financial one, as we'll as M
te chanical.
n There are practical difficulties in the wa
Of making the entire circuit of telephon
comm lnication by means of undergroun
conduits. Even with a complete system {