jjwcmp@ultb.isc.rit.edu (Jeff Wasilko) (03/06/91)
Pat: I'm not sure if you've heard, but Rochester was hit by a massive ice storm late Sunday night. We've got over 100,000 people without power, and at least 10,000 without phone service. Cable TV is also a mess at this time. Most of the people who don't have power now may have to wait until the weekend to get service restored. Every street I saw had tree branches down over cables (many of them live electric), and the problem was made worse by downed main power transmission lines. The phone network seems to be holding up well. For the few calls I placed today, I had to wait five to ten seconds to get dial tone. Some calls didn't complete or were very erratic (ringing changing to reorder, or ringing changing to dead air). The utilites are bringing in crews from as far as South Carolina and Long Island to try to get people back on line. The city has been shutdown for the past two days, but things will start to return to normal as people return to work tomorrow (Wednesday). Our county and the surrounding counties are still operating under a state of emergency. Yours in darkness, Jeff