The Connecticut labor press., 1920-08-21
STOR MS HARD ON
 PNONE SERVICE
Every Available Man Working Overtime to Repair Damage
 Done by Electrical Disturbance.

Electrical storms, severe in their in tensity and damage, recurring daily for more than three weeks, occasional ex- tremely high winds in some sections of the state, accompanied by e prolonged period of excessive humidity, have pro- duced the worst condition i'll it's outside plant that the telephone company has experienced from summer storms in its history.
 Despite the fact that every available telephone man has been put on trouble work and that many of them have worked nigths and all of them on Saturday afternoons and Sundays, they have not been able to repair the damage as fast as 1t has occurred To date the storms are ahead of them for 1t has been just one blamed break after an- other in the telephone business. A few days of dry weather, however, and the service will be cleared in all sections of the state.
 l For three weeks or more, no 24 hour period has passed without a heavy downpour of rain in some part of the state and 1t is also fact that a light ] ming storm has occurred in some sec ton of Connecticut every day for g |, consecutive days. When it rains any where Ill this state 1t rains on the equip ment of the telephone company Cables struck by lightning, broken by falling trees and then burned out by ! contact with trolley or electric light wires; flooded manho1es, grounds on telephone lines in damp cellars and elsewhere, and other disturbing effects of the long spell of wretched weather had put 1000 telephones out of com mission ln the two weeks ending today
 The service troubles of the telephone company have been cumulative. Before the breaks occurring during one storm could be repaired and service restored, along came another storm with its re- sulting damage and further interference with the service in the same locality or elsewhere in the state An official esti- mate of the number of telephoDes out of order on Thursday in some of the larger centers follows: Waterbury, 1,200; Stamford, 600, Putnam, 600; Bridgeport area, 600; Hartford, 500; New Haven, 500; New Britain, 400, and Wil1imantic, 300
 The high wind and heavy rain on the night of July B started the troublous days for the telephone people This storm took a great to1I of telephone equipment, by breaking lines and caus- ing outside electrical influences to burn them out. The damage by this storm was widespread and ran the gamut of things that can happen to put telepohne service out of order.
 On successive days or nights there after till the present, some part of the state and at times the whole state, has been visited by electrical storms and heavy downpours of rain, each doing it's own destructive work
 A lightning storm of July "A caused a burned out cable in Stamford, putting 3O0 telephones out of commission there and nearly twice that number there have since been affected by storms which crossed the Stamford section. On the same night Danbury was hard hit by the same storm. Then along came storm that struck hard up New London, Putnam, Danielson and Will section. From 200 to 500 telephones were put out of order by a succession Of storms in the eastern part of the state. Bridgeport, Norwa1k, New Ca naan and other towns in the western and northern part of the state were III the path of another intense electrical storm which played hob with the tele- phone lines. Cornwall for instance. was out of telephone communication with the state at large for few hours on Saturday morning because of a break in the main cable. Lightning caused this trouble.
 Another of the storms hit New Brit ain, Hartford and points north, with a violence that 1evelled trees and broke telephone and other wires In addition a gas station Ill Windsor burned down Saturday morning and the blaze ate its way through the Windsor-Hartford cable, cutting Windsor from communi- cation with Hartford and adding meas urably to the telephone company's troubles.
 Flooded manho1es in Waterbury, where there were miniature cloud bursts during the week. temporarily stopped service on 600 telephones in the western part of that city
 The excessive humidity has had its baneful influence on telephone service as 1t has had on the good nature of ordinary persons. Moisture in cellars has put hundreds of telephones out of commission by causing grounds and the dampened equipment in central offices further aggravated an already bad out side equipment.
 The past few days have been espe- clally severe i'll storm damage done and