If you get a busy signal when you dial the Mower County Humane Society, it’s not because the 23 dogs and 45 cats are on the phone.

Saturday, May 20, 2000

If you get a busy signal when you dial the Mower County Humane Society, it’s not because the 23 dogs and 45 cats are on the phone. It’s because the trunk line that services the MCHS is still under water, and it can’t be repaired until it emerges from the drink and has some time to dry off.

The good news? Floodwaters are receding rapidly. Ninth Place SW is open, so is Oakland Avenue. The Cedar River is quickly exiting the parks of Austin, and the mighty Turtle Creek is back in its banks, although still flowing much more quickly than normal.

Although US West officials originally told the MCHS to expect a line sometime Tuesday, US West spokesman Bryce Hallowell believes the technicians will be able to access the line by Monday. If they can, then the 300 people still without phone service – up from a 250 estimate Friday – in southeast Austin along the corridor from Oakland to Highway 218 South should be able to phone home by Tuesday.

"For safety reasons, we can’t touch that line until the water recedes," Hallowell said.

US West technician Glen Fuller was doing a scheduled hook-up Friday afternoon in Austin, but he said he’d been on repair work all morning.

"We worked late last night and we’re working late tonight," Fuller said. "We’ll be working Saturday too, I’m sure."

By the end of the day Friday, Hallowell reported, crews had whittled the 3,000 lines knocked out by lightning or floodwaters down to 550 scattered lines and the 300 in southeast Austin. By Saturday afternoon, he said they had only 36 scattered site lines left to repair.

"Crews have been working really hard to get to all the scattered outages this weekend," Hallowell said at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. "We hope they’ll have those taken care of by Sunday.

All in all, US West crews have repaired 2,668 lines in the Austin area since Wednesday’s storm.

Other than the phones and the dings and dents left by hail on trucks and automobiles around town, the only other remainders of Wednesday’s severe weather are wet basements, wet fields and the debris left lying as the waters recede.

And some very busy insurance adjusters, roofers, and auto repair shops.