By Lori Kiely & Mary Jane Foster On March 16, when the Hartford region essentially shut down in response to the coronavirus pandemic, the phones at Interval House became very quiet. Image Mary Jane Foster By early April, the number of calls to the Hartford police was so great that the department dedicated four officers to domestic violence incidents. The phones exploded, and in the next three months, the number of telephone contacts rose 58% over the same period in the previous year. Victims needed to know whether to stay or go, how to stay safe in a dangerous home, how to protect their children, and how to survive. One family was forced to flee so rapidly that they arrived with nothing. Another mother arrived having escaped an attack with a machete, and still, another woman came after she had been beaten unconscious and left to die in an apartment her abuser had set on fire.