Interruption to electronic mail was just a small part of the chaos caused by the fire at Illinois Bell: there were average two-hour delays at Chicago’s O’Hare airport – on some counts the busiest in the world – as the fire knocked out all but a few lines between O’Hare and the Air Route Traffic Control Center in Aurora: 35,000 Chicago area customers were also without phone service on Monday, and it will take until the end of the week to resume normal service; the fire was so severe that, says United Press International, the American Red Cross had to succour some 150 people evacuated from nearby homes because of the danger of toxic fumes.