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Heat spawns deaths, outages

The unyielding heat is blamed for at least 28 deaths, and conditions continue to be bad in St. Louis and New York.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 22, 2006

Officials and utilities struggled again Friday with power outages and other fallout from a blistering heat wave that has settled over much of the nation.

In St. Louis, National Guard troops stepped up a search for people in homes left without power by the worst outage in the city's history.

The misery was compounded as heavy rains and tree-toppling winds ripped through the region.

"We have 55 percent of the residents without power. Our biggest fear is that the number will go up," said Jeff Rainford, spokesman for Mayor Francis Slay.

In New York on Friday, about 100,000 people were sweltering through the fifth day of a mysterious electrical problem that has been blamed for subway delays, flight cancellations and dead air conditioners during the hottest week of the year.

The heat wave this week has been blamed for at least 28 deaths.

The death toll in Oklahoma alone rose to seven. The state medical examiner's office said the heat caused the deaths of four elderly people on Thursday, including one in Oklahoma City, where the high that day was 107.

Oklahoma City was so hot that a portion of Interstate 44 buckled, forcing the temporary closure of two lanes.

In St. Louis, as many as 500,000 Ameren Corp. customers in the area lost power Wednesday, making Thursday's heat that much more unbearable.

Progress in restoring power had been made, but Ameren said the number of customers without power rose even higher Friday, to 570,000, as a new wave of storms passed through.

In northwest St. Louis County, winds from the latest storm tore the roof off an office building, causing concerns about a natural gas leak and leaving about 100 workers to fend for themselves in the rain.

Jeff Winkler, an analytical chemist at Severn Trent Labs, was just pulling into the parking lot when the roof came off.

"I saw the roof flying, and I was thinking, 'Please, don't hit my car,' " said Winkler, 26. "I thought I saw the worst of it earlier this week - but this was worse."

The power company had said that Wednesday's outage was the worst in its 100-plus year history and that it could take four days to restore power. On Friday it said the work could take even longer.

High temperatures in St. Louis had dropped to the mid 80s Friday, but National Guard troops, police, firefighters and volunteers were knocking on doors that morning to check on elderly residents and offer bottled water.

On Thursday authorities said a 93-year-old St. Louis woman had been found dead in a home without power to run the air conditioning.

More than 50 cooling centers were set up in the area, but Agnes Reese, who spent Friday in one of the shelters, said the lack of air conditioning was just part of the problem.

"There are a lot of people who are hungry because all of their food has spoiled," said Reese, 48.

Heat-related deaths also have been reported this week in Missouri, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota, Tennessee and Kansas.

New Yorkers on Friday endured a fifth day of the mysterious electrical problem that has been blamed for subway delays, flight cancellations and dead air conditioners during the hottest week of the year.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown issued a statement Friday saying his staff was conducting a review to determine if criminal charges are warranted.

The blackouts started Monday in a handful of neighborhoods in Queens. Two LaGuardia Airport terminals lost power Monday night and again on Tuesday.

Since then, hundreds of businesses have been idle, and the city's jail complex on Rikers Island has had to operate on backup generators. Some buildings' elevators were not running, and traffic lights at some intersections were not working.

Consolidated Edison spokesman Chris Olert said the power company was making every effort to get the situation fixed but couldn't estimate when that might happen. He said the company didn't know why things went wrong.

"Chances are fair, but not firm, that it was heat related, but right now that is just a hypothesis," he said.

[Last modified July 22, 2006, 01:17:21]