THE THREE FURIES

mythology there lived three Furies of despair and destruction upon their unhappy victims in years to come it may well be said that the three Furies came again in 1954 Carroll with unpredictable cunning advanced from the Caribbean then veered unexpectedly and took dead aim at New England Edler following in Carroll's path smashed into almost the same area these two sisters of fury hit New England hard particularly Rhode Island Massachusetts New Hampshire and Maine their patterns were the same lashing rains riding on winds up to 125 miles per hour when Carol the first hurricane had passed New England emerged to take stock of its losses Boston's old north paul revere's historic ride so well they shattered in the street an airplane carrier was almost capsized when Carroll picked up and dropped a 200 ton crane on its deck a radio tower whose lace like steel could not even escape lay in ruin the picture was difficult to grasp unless you saw him you can't stop hurricanes but you know when they're coming and you can have plans ready for instant act your telephone company like other service organizations has just such an emergency plan restoration control center oh yeah Fred yes everything still indicates you let around problems no they're gonna need those New York man for sure New York can send 250 repairmen 53 line gangs and 88 splicing crews this is Johnson at Newark she hasn't hurt New Jersey too much we can spare about 265 men and 35 foremen from Michigan Bell came cheering news glad to help add Western Electric people have lined up a special train for men 320 of them and the 200 trucks will be on a 90 car fast freight till New England we'll see him tomorrow and calmly did thousands of men and hundreds of tribe they knew was not easy long hours of work would be required so what this was a disaster it's a spirit of service that gets you are way down inside sure does mr. working Pennsylvania if we'd been on the receiving end of that hurricane why the boys New England would be traveling in our direction they came by bus they came by train they even came by boat men who had known disaster because they had been through it many times before explosions tornadoes fire flood they knew the task ahead and were confident and understandably so they were thoroughly trained in the use of telephone equipment and construction methods these telephone trucks are the same as those used by the telephone men in your own no matter from where telephone men are summoned the tools and equipment with which they work are uniform it is this uniformity that makes it possible for telephone men to go anywhere in an emergency walk on a job and take over their duties and that's exactly what these thousands of men did on their arrival in the stricken areas whatever tools and equipment they needed had preceded them for the telephone companies disaster plan calls for a standby alert to every Western Electric distributing point that might serve the disaster area large quantities of material and supplies were made available for shipment to the point of emergency when Carol hid equipment and tools were on their way from eighty three locations in 22 states Western Electric supplies were rushed to the hard-hit New England area temporary supply depots were set up at strategic locations and kept stocked with replacement cable wire hauls and other equipment for no standard working hours it wasn't around-the-clock operation to these telephone men who had come to help nothing was more important than getting telephones back into operation working side by side with their buddies from New England they set about cleaning up the tangled debris thousands of trees had toppled across streets and roadways crushing everything in their path seeing the destruction they caused you could understand why telephone men reported that despite sturdy construction falling trees damaged more telephone lines than the wind however it was heartening to know that in many instances telephone cables down by fallen trees were still carrying messages and that standby generators were available to keep central offices in operation that had lost their power but these advantages were offset by the immensity of the job that faced these telephone workers thousands of new poles had to be placed millions of feet of wire had to be strong endless splices had to be made 11,000 men working as a team and the challenging task of restoring service to over 300,000 telephones and restoring it quickly these men were spurred on by an overpowering stimulus they realized that restoration of telephone service was of first importance that it summons help dispatchers aid and expedites the work of relief they knew two of its importance to the telephone user of the relief from worry and anxiety it brings it anytime but particularly in times of emergency every man realized the responsibility that was his and the speed with which they restored telephone service to New England was evidence of their concern it was the greatest job of its kind in telephone history and to the many who had worked the successful completion of their task came as a welcome relief it had been a tough hard grind now they were tired they were going home etna changed all that Edna was bigger and rougher than Carol construction it was a discouraging blow but New England shrugged it off and said about the business of putting her house in order a second time the damage to telephone installations exceeded that of Carol more men and more equipment went into the struggle to restore service than had been used in the Carroll hurricane a job well done had to be done again and done again it was the men who had worked around the clock took up where they left off in five days the work of restoration was complete it seemed incredible that it should happen again but four weeks later hazel the third member of the three Furies made her way up the coast and struck a smashing blow at North Carolina sweeping inward and considerably west of the hurricane paths it pounded at Virginia Maryland and parts of Pennsylvania New York New Jersey and Canada hazal seemed like an anti-climax but not to those areas hit by her destruction for hazel was even more widespread and damaging than either of her sister Furies damage to telephone installation was even worse almost 500,000 telephones were knocked out the parallel of destruction was the same the cleanup and restoration was the same it could almost be said by the men of the telephone company this is where we came in and came in they did with the coordinated resources of all those near to the disaster instantly employed again to restore service over a hundred and fifty thousand telephones were back in business the day after the storm and over three hundred thousand were in operation the next day 48 hours later service was practically normal but it had been costly the three Furies had dealt staggering blows the loss of life the misery the suffering cannot be measured in terms of money estimates of the total property damage approached a billion dollars along with others in the path of the storms the telephone companies suffered great losses but telephone men and women had the satisfaction and pride of knowing they had met a great challenge and one let's call it the spirit of service to which they are dedicated it's their way of acknowledging the duty and responsibility they owe to you who depend on the telephone