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506 ILLUSTRATED WORLD
At Both of the Terminals the Confusion of Wrecked Wires and Pulled
Out Cables Was Amazing
of these cables contained 3,500 pairs;
Brooklyn and lower Manhattan were
abruptly disconnected.
From the Brooklyn side, the cables
together with the large beam to which
they were chained were pulled into the
stream for a distance of thirty or forty
feet and the cable house near the bridge
was so filled with a tangle of wires that
it was impossible to enter; the complicated
connections had been pulled violently
out of place. On the New York
side things were not so bad, but two
cables had been dislodged and the heavy
piles which secured
them were broken.
While the confusion
was being cleared up
at the cable houses,
and while emergency
measures were taken to
route messages by a
circuitous way, a diver
was put to work in the
river bed, examining
the wreckage on the
bottom. It was found
impossible to unchain
the cables separately
so that they could be
pulled back one at a
time, for they were so
entangled that the whole
mass must be raised at
once. This had to be
done with the greatest
care in order to avoid
pulling out the remaining
cables, which were
held in place only by
the lead sheath.
The current was
swift where the snarl
lay in the stream, and
the diver could not
work to advantage. A
rope was sent down to
him which he attached
to one of the ring
bolts, and after a number
of these wire cables
had been fastened to
the mass, it was raised slowly by power
from the cable boat. The tangle that
was raised alongside the vessel seemed
absolutely hopeless, but by hard work
the cables were separated, unchained
from the beam and pulled back one at a
time to the cable house and terminated.
For a period of four or five days men
worked constantly in the cable houses,
one shift following another immediately.
In completing the task, these employes
had to endure the most terrible hardships,
for working conditions were particularly
severe.