Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 January 1898 — IN AN ICY GRASP. [ARTICLE]

IN AN ICY GRASP.

Great Damage Wrought by Snow, Frost and Wind in Chicago, Chicago was on Sunday a wrecked but a beautiful city. From underneath a tangle of telephone, telegraph and trolley wires its streets and rooftops sparkled white, while every tree stood out against the blue of the sky like a diamond cluster aglow in a turquoise setting. Ruin itself was not hideous, for the sun gilded the icy coating of the fallen wires, as well as the interlacing snow and frost fringes of twigs and branches. Dawn looked upon a city as isolated from the world as if it lay locked in the heart of the arctic zone. It was walled at its outskirts by banks of snow which blockaded every suburban street car line and furnished picturesque resting places for broken telegraph poles and miles of twisted, useless wire. Chicago suffered more than any other city included in a territorial storm area extending from Wyoming, Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin and lowa on the west and north to Pennsylvania and New York ou the east. Railroad and Western Union telegraph authorities agreed in the statement that the destruction of their lines was confined practically to the edge of the city circle. No lines were affected beyond a radius of 100 miles from Chicago, few beyond one of twenty-five.

Demoralization of telegraph service caused the principal trouble for railroads centering in Chicago and seriously interfered with the movement of trains. On many of the lines the wires were completely disabled and train dispatching came to a standstill Until dispatchers could be sent from the main offices to outlying stations, where the communication was not so badly hampered. But the havoc wrought among the wires was not the only trouble that was met by the railroads. The heavy snowfall and consequent wretched condition of the tracks delayed trains and added an element of danger to their operation. Chicago was for hours cut off telegraphically from nearly all the principal cities of the country, and the storm's havoc affected the city telephone and fire alarm service to the poipt of temporary disablement.