National Affairs: THIS HAPPENED IN TEXAS

It began in silence. At 4 o'clock one morning a drizzle started in a big section of the Texas Panhandle. There was no wind. The temperature hovered at the freezing point, barely above, barely below. Fog, rain & sleet froze on trees and telephone wires. By noon trees in Amarillo were groaning with the weight of ice on their limbs. By midnight three-fourths of the town's telephone circuits were useless. By 1:30 the next afternoon the power lines were down. Western Union lost 800 poles, 2,000 crossarms, had 100,000 wire breaks. In Amarillo 100 telephone poles toppled (throughout the storm area,...