New York City commuters sweated on their way to work on Wednesday as the temperature and humidity started climbing back up to heatwave levels after a night of little relief.
In the stifling subway tunnels, there was no air conditioning on three cars of the train that Sayed Bukhari rode into Manhattan. ”People were crying,” Sayed said.
The National Weather Service posted heat advisories and warnings from Maine to Oklahoma. Temperatures above 38 degrees Celsius were forecast for Wednesday along the East Coast as far north as parts of Maine and New Hampshire.
The temperature was already above 27 degrees Celsius before dawn on Wednesday at Nashua, New Hampshire. New York’s LaGuardia airport still had 34 degrees Celsius at midnight and eased only to 30 degrees Celsius by 6am, the National Weather Service said. In the heart of crowded Manhattan, the low at Central Park only got down to 29 degrees Celsius.
Equipment problems and stormy weather caused scattered power failures during the night in parts of the north-eastern New England states, shutting off fans and air conditioners, utilities said.
Electricity usage in the six-state New England region could top 28 000 megawatts on Wednesday, breaking the one-day record of 27 395 megawatts set just two weeks ago, according to Erin O’Brien, a spokesperson for ISO New England, which oversees the region. The demand on Tuesday was just shy of the record, she said.
The hot weather brought its share of troubles on 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, and the heat was suspected in the death of a 75-year-old woman in Wisconsin who kept the air conditioning off to save money.
To the north and west, some areas had started to enjoy a break from the heat. Hayward, Wisconsin, cooled to 21 degrees Celsius on Tuesday, down from 40 degrees on Monday.
Elsewhere, however, by mid-afternoon on Tuesday the temperature in Chicago was 38 degrees Celsius, Baltimore reached 37 degrees and Washington hit 36 degrees, though the humidity made it feel like 41,5 degrees. Highs of 38 degrees in Newark, New Jersey, and 36 degrees in Atlantic City, New Jersey, tied records. In Manchester, New Hampshire, it reached 35 degrees, tying the record for the date set in 1933.
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 26 degrees Celsius, up from the usual 22 degrees. 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 farm when electricity was shut off so firefighters could fight a blaze at an adjacent building.
The American Automobile Association’s (AAA) mid-Atlantic division handled 7 400 calls for assistance from Monday afternoon to Tuesday evening — a 37% rise over normal summer call volume.
”That’s about comparable to what we get in a major snowstorm,” said John B Townsend, an AAA spokesperson. Many were for overheated vehicles, hoses, belts breaking down and cracking and tyres blowing out on the hot asphalt. — Sapa-AP