Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, July 04, 2002
Heat Wave Hits USA
Power outages left people without air conditioners to fight the July heat in parts of Colorado and Connecticut, U.S., and two deaths this week have been blamed on the stifling weather in St. Louis.
Power outages left people without air conditioners to fight the July heat in parts of Colorado and Connecticut, U.S., and two deaths this week have been blamed on the stifling weather in St. Louis.
Temperatures were expected to rise into the 90s again Wednesday afternoon from parts of the West and northern Plains to the lower Mississippi Valley and much of the East.
New York City opened more than 300 cool buildings to the public Wednesday to provide relief from temperatures expected to approach 100. Humidity during the morning was a sticky 67%, the National Weather Service said.
"We're knocking on the door of record heat," said Dave Robinson, New Jersey's state climatologist. Triple-digit temperatures were possible; the record for the date at Newark is 105.
A transformer failure in Connecticut left about 12,000 residents of eight towns without fans or air conditioners during the night. Most were back online Wednesday morning.
The New England power grid was on alert as the heat cranked up demand, with highs in the low 90s possible as far north as Portland, Maine.
In the West, about 700 customers of Xcel Energy lost electricity Tuesday in Colorado as a 12-day heat wave with highs in the 90s and record demand strained the state's biggest energy supplier.
Grand Junction, Colo., hit a record high on Tuesday of 103.
Two heat-related deaths have been reported this week in St. Louis, for a total of six in about a month. One victim had an air conditioner that didn't work, and the other had no fans or air conditioning, authorities said.