Switchboards Jammed on Capitol Hill
Americans who wanted to talk to their representatives in Congress about the deployment of U.S. troops in Honduras had trouble getting through to the Capitol switchboard Thursday because they were competing with more than 400,000 other callers.
The Capitol Telecommunications Office suffered a “slowdown” because of the massive number of phone calls on the Central American situation, meaning callers got busy signals, were put on hold or otherwise had trouble getting through.
The switchboard at the Senate Press Gallery was also under siege, a spokesman said.
A spokeswoman in the office of the Senate sergeant at arms said 479,241 phone calls came into the Capitol switchboard. “It’s what they’re calling a slowdown” in service, she said.
That number compares to 195,498 calls on an average day.
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