US swelters in stifling heatwave*

Don Babwin, Associated Press in Chicago
Wednesday August 2, 2006
The Guardian

Elderly residents were evacuated from blacked-out apartments yesterday
and public officials urged people to conserve electricity as a stifling
heatwave spread across the eastern half of the US.

Temperatures were likely to soar to around 38C (100F) in Washington, New
York (where a construction worker used water to cool down yesterday) and
other cities along the east coast, as well on the southern plains.

Chicago officials evacuated hundreds of residents - many of them elderly
- from blacked-out high-rises in a densely populated area of the city's
South Side yesterday morning. City officials said up to 20,000 people
had lost electricity, beginning on Monday evening.

"It's a mess," said Lenora Stinson, who was in an 11th-floor apartment
when the power died. "It's a big mess. Everybody's panicking - they
don't know where they're going."

In upstate New York, thermometers hit 32C before noon, and were expected
to reach as high as 39C.

 Eastern U.S. swelters

Heat suspected in Georgia teen's death

NEW YORK (AP) -- Commuters along the East Coast sweated on their way to
work Wednesday, while others stayed close to fans and swimming pools as
the heat wave levels returned after a night of little relief.

In the stifling subway tunnels, there was no air conditioning on three
cars of the train Sayed Bukhari rode into Manhattan.

"People were crying," Bukhari said.

The National Weather Service posted heat advisories and warnings from
Maine to Oklahoma. Triple-digit temperatures were forecast Wednesday
along the East Coast as far north as parts of Maine and New Hampshire.
(Watch how residents across the country are being affected -- 2:20)

By 11 a.m., the heat index at Washington's Reagan National Airport was
103 -- a combination of the 94-degree heat and 51 percent humidity. And
up north in Boston thermometers read 93, for a heat index of 101, the
National Weather Service said. The temperature at Newark, New Jersey,
already had hit 95.

Even before dawn, the temperature was already above 80 in Nashua, New
Hampshire. New York's LaGuardia Airport still had 92 degrees at midnight
and eased only to 86 degrees by 6 a.m., the weather service said.

"You don't beat it," workman Frank Kenney, 40, said Tuesday in Bangor,
Maine. "You just get through it."

Equipment problems and stormy weather caused scattered power outages
during the night in parts of New England, New York and New Jersey,
shutting off fans and air conditioners, utilities said.

Although demand for electricity to spin fans and air conditioners was
expected to be high Wednesday along the East Coast, lower temperatures
in the Midwest were helping to slightly reduce overall demand, said PJM
Interconnection. The electrical grid operator oversees power to 51
million people in 13 Eastern states. That meant regional demand should
not hit a record, said spokesman Ray Dotter.

In the six-state New England region, however, demand could break a
one-day record, set just two weeks ago, of 27,395 megawatts, said Erin
O'Brien, a spokeswoman for grid operator ISO New England. Tuesday's
demand just missed a record, she said.

The hot weather brought its share of troubles Tuesday, putting animals
in jeopardy, disabling cars and prompting New York to turn off lights
atop the Empire State Building.

Residents on Chicago's South Side were evacuated from high-rise
buildings by the hundreds on Tuesday, one day after the power went out
to 20,000 customers. Illinois officials blamed three deaths on the heat.

A 15-year-old high school football player died in Georgia, one day after
collapsing in the heat at practice. The heat was also suspected in the
death of a 75-year-old woman in Wisconsin who kept the air conditioning
off to save money.

Utilities said customer demand for power reached or exceeded all-time
record highs.

With a disastrous 10-day power outage in one borough still fresh in
memory, thermostats at city offices in New York City were set at 78, up
from the usual 72. Lights were turned down on the Empire State Building
and the Chrysler Building, as were the lights illuminating the George
Washington Bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge and other spans.

Farmers used fans and cold showers to keep their cattle cool, but at
least 25,000 chickens died of the heat at an Indiana when electricity
was shut off so firefighters could fight a blaze at an adjacent building.

The American Automobile Association's Mid-Atlantic division handled
7,400 calls for assistance from Monday afternoon through Tuesday evening
-- a 37 percent rise over normal summer call volume.

"That's about comparable to what we get in a major snowstorm," said John
B. Townsend, an AAA spokesman. Many were for overheated vehicles, hoses,
belts breaking down and cracking and tires blowing out on the hot asphalt.