I strongly second what Mary Garvey says above.

I can look at this with a somewhat expert eye. Between 1977 and 1985, my day job was working as a telephone operator for Pacific Northwest Bell (the name has changed so many times since then, I haven't a clue as to what they're calling it now). I was working on Sunday morning, May 18, 1980, when Mount St. Helens erupted. Within seconds after the eruption, radio and television stations were on the air with it. And within seconds after the news broke, everyone was on the phone. Within about ten minutes after the eruption, the lines were completely jammed. People would dial a number and all they could get was the "busy circuits" signal (it sounds like a busy signal, but faster). In some locales, they couldn't even get a dial tone. A minuscule percentage of these were emergency calls. Almost all of the rest were "Everything's fine here, Aunt Martha. How is it out your way?" or "We can't see it from here. Can you see it out your front window?" Real emergency calls could not get through, and there was not that damn thing we could do about!

Unless you have a real emergency call, or need to check on someone who may be in danger (and you can actually do something about it), stay the hell off the phone!!

Don Firth