East Coast heat wave strains power supply
Source: Agencies |
July 25, 2011, Monday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A HEAT wave scorched the United States East Coast with another day of high temperatures on Saturday, forcing power authorities to throttle back the voltage to protect straining electrical grids as residents cranked up the air.
Temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius in Atlantic City, New Jersey, 39 degrees in Baltimore, 38 degrees in Washington, D.C., and 37 degrees in Philadelphia and at New York's Kennedy Airport, but humidity made it feel hotter across the region.
In New York's Times Square, tourists crowded into patches of shade along a baking Broadway, where Tony Eckinger, 34, was selling spray bottles with fans attached for US$30. He had bought them at a drug store earlier in the day for US$15.
"All the stores here are sold out," Eckinger said. "Everybody's trying to keep cool."
Nearby, Gordon Miller, 58, waited in the sun as his family bought theater tickets at a discount booth.
"I told them I don't care what we see," said Miller, of Peebles, Scotland. "Getting inside and getting cool, that's the idea."
The heat was expected to ease yesterday, but will remain above 30 degrees, National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Pollina said.
"Monday is really when we see cooler air coming," he said, with forecasted temperatures sinking to the mid-20 degrees.
The bubble of hot air developed over the Midwest earlier this week and has caused more than a dozen deaths as it moved eastward. By Saturday, the medical examiner's office in Chicago listed heat stress or heat stroke as the cause of death for eight people. The latest death involved a 59-year-old man.
In south-central Pennsylvania, authorities said a 63-year-old man in York died on Friday of hyperthermia, or overheating, in an unventilated apartment where the temperature had reached 43 degrees. A 94-year-old man in Carroll Township also died after his air conditioner stopped working because of a tripped circuit breaker.
About 10,000 customers remained without power in New York City and its suburbs, and about 9,000 in New Jersey, after parts of the region's electrical network failed.
Temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius in Atlantic City, New Jersey, 39 degrees in Baltimore, 38 degrees in Washington, D.C., and 37 degrees in Philadelphia and at New York's Kennedy Airport, but humidity made it feel hotter across the region.
In New York's Times Square, tourists crowded into patches of shade along a baking Broadway, where Tony Eckinger, 34, was selling spray bottles with fans attached for US$30. He had bought them at a drug store earlier in the day for US$15.
"All the stores here are sold out," Eckinger said. "Everybody's trying to keep cool."
Nearby, Gordon Miller, 58, waited in the sun as his family bought theater tickets at a discount booth.
"I told them I don't care what we see," said Miller, of Peebles, Scotland. "Getting inside and getting cool, that's the idea."
The heat was expected to ease yesterday, but will remain above 30 degrees, National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Pollina said.
"Monday is really when we see cooler air coming," he said, with forecasted temperatures sinking to the mid-20 degrees.
The bubble of hot air developed over the Midwest earlier this week and has caused more than a dozen deaths as it moved eastward. By Saturday, the medical examiner's office in Chicago listed heat stress or heat stroke as the cause of death for eight people. The latest death involved a 59-year-old man.
In south-central Pennsylvania, authorities said a 63-year-old man in York died on Friday of hyperthermia, or overheating, in an unventilated apartment where the temperature had reached 43 degrees. A 94-year-old man in Carroll Township also died after his air conditioner stopped working because of a tripped circuit breaker.
About 10,000 customers remained without power in New York City and its suburbs, and about 9,000 in New Jersey, after parts of the region's electrical network failed.
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