The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-04-14
STORM LEFT MARK
 IN MANY PLACES
Falling Wires Interrupted Trol-
 icy Service West
MANY POLES PULLED DOWN
Many Telephones Were Put Out of Commission and Telegraph Com - panies Both Had Out
 Linemen.

When daybreak came yesterday
 morning it showed Birmingham in a
 sad plight as the result of the storm
 which swept over the city shortly be- fore 2 a. m.
 Glass windows. ehimneys. chicken
 houses. telephone and telegraph poles,
 trees. fences, shacks and light frame
 houses had broken and twisted out | of all shape as the fierce west wind
 beat about them and as a result street
 car traffic and telephone and electric light service were badly impaired for
 a while
 West End, Elyton and First and Sec
 ond avenues on the west side of Bir-
 mingham were directly in the path of
 the storm, though 1t appeared to have stopped for a while to visit South ] Highlands and a few other parts of
 the town. leaving its mark in every
 place 1t touched.
 One result of the storm which prob
 ably caused more inconvenience than
 any other was the complete tying up
 of the South Bessemer line until late
 yesterday afternoon, some 20 poles sup porting the trolley and other wires
 falling across the track Hundreds of persons were compelled to walk to their places of business in Birming- ham. One special car bearing party of young people who had attended a dance in Birmingham was stalled at | Jefferson street, West End, and the | passengers were compelled to stay aboard the car until daybreak came | 1. | from Bessemer was also stopped at l Sixth street.
 The street railway company had a
 large gang of men at work early in ] the day and by afternoon had com | pletely cleared the line.
 | The report of the weather bureau | showed the greatest velocity of the
 wind to have been 30 miles an hour | The weather station, however was nearly two miles out of the path of l the storm, and the estimate of the wind down town is placed at nearly | 50 miles an hour.
 Reports show the telephone service
 to have been badly impaired by the
 storm. Over 1000 ph ones of the South ern Bell were still out of order last
 night. Manager Turnbull states they will soon have everything adjusted and asks patrons to be patient. The Peo-
 ples company suffered but slightly and
 last night had-cleared practically all
 trouble. The Western Union and Pos
 tai telegraph companies both suffered
 to some extent. A large force of line
 men reached Birmingham from Atlanta at noon yesterday to repair the dam | age to the Western Union wires. 1 It Is not believed that the total actual | damage caused by the storm will
 amount to $20O00. The Birmingham
 Railway. Light and Power company's
 will come close to s3000.
 President A. H. Ford, of this com pany, in speaking of the trouble yes | terday afternoon, said:
 "I am glad to say that the storm inconvenienced our patrons Nery little In fact if the wires of the telephone and telegraph company had not fallen across ours and torn them down we would have been able to furnish every
 one of our patrons with street car ser vice, lights and power without cessa-
 tion. As 1t was, only the people liv- ing on the Powderly and West End lines were compelled to walk to town
 in the morning, but we had through service on that line early in the aft
 ernoon, although three blocks of the line were down. As I said before, oth CT wires caused even this trouble. Considering the seriousness of the
 storm and how badly such storm
 usually cripples a street railway and lighting company, the people were for
 tunate and the company was forum ate in getting out with so little diff
 fculty However, this shows what has been accomplished by us in the past two or three years.
 "Our lighting system was down only
 few minutes during the storm, but went right back up again and the
 entire city and all the suburbs ex- cept West End, Elyton and Powderly were supplied as usual. This is re- markable in consideration of the fact
 that the lightning came into the power house time and again last night. The lightning arresters, however, worked perfectly and the engines were not af- fected.
 "If we had not been crossed by oth
 CT wires and other poles had not pulled ours down, we would not have had an interruption in our business in any department at any place.