The Saint Paul globe., 1905-01-15

Special to The Globe
NU EW YORK, Jan. 14.-This is the sea-
IMl son of storms which make trouble
Nv on the wires, when telephone and
telegraph lines are reported as down
and towns and cities are sometimes tenn
porariiy cut off from communication with
the outside world. Many of the severe
storms of winter do not damage the prop
ertys of the electrical companies; cts an
Ill Wind that blows nobody good" and a
blizzard that ties up railroads and street
cars may not be the kind of disturbance
that stops the clicking of telegraph keys
and interrupts the flow of talk over tel
ephor1e lines. Hard, dry snow, falling in
nne fakes and packing over roads and
tracks, holding up travel on the high
ways and traffic by train, is not the foe
most dreaded by telephone and telegraph
managers But now and then there comes
a storm when the damp snow clings in
heavy masses to the lines or the icy rain
turns to a coating of sleet on the wires,
layer being added to layer until the iron
or copper strands stretched from pole
to pole seem almost as big around as a
barrel AT such times the lines yield
TO the enormous strain, poles break and
fail and wires are thrown in a tangled
mass upon the ground. Or the wind alone
may have sufficient force to NOW down
the pole lines, as happened in stretches
many miles long, in places, during the
heavy blow early in November last
Telephone companies are less likely to
suffer because of storms than the tele-
graph, for the reason that successful COM
munication by telephone requires especial
ly careful construction with heavier wires
and stronger poles more firmly set into the
earth. Nevertheless, a large force of men
and an expensive equipment must be
maintained all the time to keep open the
telephone lines, which the public has come
to depend upon to such an extent that
their temporary disabling may bring a
vast amount of important business to a
Standstill.
When poles are prostrated by the thou
sands and wires are tangled in such hope
less CONFUSION that they must be cut
away without even an attempt to unravel
the snarls, the telephone companies call
into action an army of men to make re-
pairs. Sometimes they come from places
hundreds of miles from the scene of
trouble and for their use great quantities
OF supplies are stored at central points
whence they may be sent as quickly as
possible to the force in the field That
they may the better carry on this war
with the elements the companies in the
Bell system have divided the country into
districts and the repair department is or
ganized and handled on lines suggestive
of an ever ready army.
lInemen Are ingenious
The telephone repair men are ingenious
fellows. If they find pole broken short
off near the top it is a simple matter to
fasten the upper portion to fence or
building that the wires may be again
strung to the cross arms. Friendly trees
may serve temporarily in place of poles;
there have been times when even the
strands of wire fences by the roadside
were made to take the place tempora rily
of telephone cables In fact the first time
fence wire was used for telephone pur-
poses was not as many people suppose,
when it occurred to a Western farmer that
he could talk along the boundaries of his
fields; 1t was when a young engineer. who
was making repairs after winter storm
in New England, bridged gap by con-
Meeting the broken telephone wires with
those of a nearby fence. After the bliz-
zard which swept the Eastern states late
in the winter of 1889 the city of New
York was buried under piles of snow in
which were hidden the snarled and broken
threads of communication. A gang of
men engaged in restoring the. telephone
service Travelled uptown over the roofs of
the buildings and coming to a church
took the wires in through the windows
on one side of the steeple and out on
the other.
Telephone men relate many such in
stances of their battles with the elements,
but repair work is in some ways simpler
now than it was in the early days. Out
in the open country, the use of emergency
cable makes it no longer necessary to in
clude fences In hastily repaired lines, and
In the cities underground construction has
removed the wires from menace by wind
and sleet. Because the wires are generally
buried in the larger cities, it is natural
that after every destructive storm there
should come a demand from smaller places
that the service be similarly protected.
Very likely the man who telephones a
hundred years from now, no matter in
what part of the country he may be- will
talk entirely over underground lines un-
less by that time it becomes possible to
converse over long distances without the
use of metallic connection at all; but at
present telephone lines must continue to
be carried or poles except in cities and
large towns. Nobody would hail the day
when the wires could be buried in the
small places, as well as in the cities more
gladly than telephone managers, but they
know that that day will be long time
coming, and for several good reasons,
chief of which. so far as local telephone
plants are concerned, is the plain, Ameri-
can one of dollars and cents.
Great Underground Work
Years ago the telephone companies be-
gan placing their wires below the surface
Of city streets and this work has pro-
gressed steadily until of the 1000. coo miles
of wire in the Bell system more than
. 100000 miles have been placed III under
ground cables. Where there are great