Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 February 1903 — STORM TIES UP CHICAGO. [ARTICLE]

STORM TIES UP CHICAGO.

City Practically Cut Off from tbe World by Know ati<L Sleet. The snow, sleet and rain of Wednesday and the afternoon and night before, aided by the fierce northeast gale that at one time attained a velocity of fifty milq? an hour, blotted Chicago from the map, so far as communication with tho outside world was concerned, sll through the day and even well into the’ night. Telegraph and telephone wires were down iu every direction, and it was Impossible to get n message either iu opout of the city, except here and there iu the West. The city was completely isolated from the east, north and south, and it was with difficulty that the stock market reports from the east were delivered to the board of Trade and the Stock Exchange, coming by a roundabout course to the south and eventually filtering in from the southwest. Veteran telegrapliers recalled the blizzard that cut off New York City from the rest of the country iu March, 1888, when the tidings of the death of Roscoe Oonkling had to be cabled across the Atlantic and back again to get the news to the inland cities of the United States. While snow was falling In Chicago and as fur west as the Rockies and far into the north as well, rain was sweeping over tho country to the south and east. The gale from the northeast spread out until it embraced the sections which had escaped the snowfall, and there began the troubles of the telegraph and telephone companies. The wind had a clear sweep Over Lake Michigan nnd beat down upon the unprotected Indiana shores. There were no stretches of for est to break its fuyjie and In a short time the rain changtfifto sleet. Almost at once the effect of this was felt in Chicago. By midnight Tuesday the telegraph operators at the keys in Chicago offices found no response to their signals and long before dawn all communication with the East was effectually shut off. The storm swept on and circled around to the south of Chicago, carrying down the wires there. To the north the same difficulty had developed somewhat earlier and the western wires were working badly on account of the heavy snow. The New York gold and stock quotations were wired from New York City to Washington nnd from there forwarded to Cincinnati. From Cincinnati they were sent on again to St. Louis, nnd St. Louis delivered them to Kansas City, where they made another stride over the telegraph wires to Omaha. Here telephonic communication with Chicago had been established Rt 10:30 o'clock in the morning. The Chicago quotations were forwarded in the same fashion.