s for months," said one railroad official. "It takes
time to rebuild steel bridges, especially as the big steel plants have
been experiencing a little trouble of their own."

FLOOD PLAYED HAVOC WITH MAILS

Storm, flood and fire in the Middle West played havoc with the United
States mails. Postmaster-General Burleson announced on March 26th that
the destruction wrought by the floods in Ohio and Indiana was so serious
that it would be ten or twelve days before a regular mail service could
be resumed with the remote districts.

Reports showed that never before in the history of the service had there
been such a serious interruption to the mails on account of floods.
There was practically no local service on the railroads in the
territory bounded by Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati,
Indianapolis, Terre Haute and the Ohio River.

Mails to New York from points in Kentucky and Tennessee, from Pittsburgh
and Cincinnati, Ohio, and all points south of the Ohio River came by way
of Washington and were from five to seven hours late. The Arkansas and
Oklahoma mails traveled by way of Chattanooga and Memphis.

The representatives in the field were directed to be in constant
communication with the department at Washington and to make every effort
to supply the people in the flood districts with mail as rapidly as
arrangements could be completed. Mails for distant points which
regularly passed through the flooded sections were detoured north and
south, resulting in unavoidable delay.

GENERAL PROSTRATION OF TELEGRAPH AND TELEPHONE WIRES

Never before in the history of the United States was there such a
general prostration of telegraph and telephone wires as during the great
flood. Chicago was "lost" to the East for part of a day, and it was
found impossible to reach that city via the South. Throughout eastern
Ohio service was paralyzed, and such few wires as could be obtained were
flickering and often going down.

The Western Union and Postal Telegraph Companies in New York announced
on March 26th that they did not have a wire working in the thousands of
square miles roughly marked by Indianapolis on the west, Pittsburgh on
the east, Cleveland on the north and the Ohio River on the south. The
Postal had but two wires working between New York and Chicago and these
were routed by way of Buffalo. None of its wires south of Washington was
working.

An army of 10,000 men was sent into the region to repair the wires, but