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Spate of foul weather plagues cities nationwide

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published July 24, 2006

ST. LOUIS - More than 100 dump trucks rolled through city streets Sunday collecting mangled trees and branches left behind by last week's powerful storms that cut power to hundreds of thousands of customers.

Tons of debris reached up to 25 feet high at one of three city dropoff points, parks officials said. Members of the Missouri Army National Guard are assisting with the cleanup.

"It's hard to believe your eyes when you are looking at something this massive," St. Louis parks director Gary Bass said. "This is just the beginning."

About 290,000 homes and businesses in St. Louis were still without power Sunday, down from more than a half-million homes and businesses powerless last week while temperatures soared into triple digits. Four deaths in the region have been attributed to the storms or heat.

A utility company spokeswoman said it could be at least four days before service is fully restored.

President Bush on Friday approved Missouri's request for an expedited disaster declaration, which mobilizes the Federal Emergency Management Agency and provides federal funding for debris removal and other emergency needs.

Andrew Mullins, who was without power for three days, had landscaping on his mind Sunday. The 35-year-old west St. Louis resident shoveled three trash barrels full of free mulch that city workers had processed from the mountains of debris.

Parks officials said the piles of shattered limbs could stretch more than 30 football fields long. What's not turned to mulch will be cut into free firewood or sent away.

"I call the storm the grand pruning," Mullins said. "Every tree in the city was pruned."

Wildfires: A fire burning in Tonto National Forest in Arizona threatened two transmission lines that send electricity to metropolitan Phoenix, officials said Sunday. The 3,500-acre fire wasn't threatening buildings, said Emily Garber, a spokeswoman for Tonto National Forest. It was about 2 miles from the power lines. She said crews were optimistic that retardant would keep the fire from advancing toward the power lines. The fire, which was sparked by lightning Friday afternoon, was not contained.

- A lightning-sparked wildfire on Catalina Island, off the coast of Southern California, had scorched 1,200 acres of brush Sunday, and several blazes continued to burn in the mountains and desert east of Los Angeles.

- In Nevada, erratic winds, inaccessible terrain and numerous mine shafts were hampering firefighters in their battle against a 1,500-acre wildfire near the historic mining town of Virginia City.

Heat: Sweltering heat was blamed Sunday for at least three deaths in Northern California, including a resident at a nursing home who died after the facility's air conditioning system failed. No relief is expected until at least midweek, as weather conditions conspired to bake California's normally cool coast for a third day and bring Midwest-style humidity into the usually arid Central Valley. Heat waves left much of the country sweltering last week, with temperatures soaring into the upper 90s and higher from coast to coast and heat-related deaths reported in Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota and Tennessee.

Lightning: Two teenagers were recovering Sunday from a lightning strike that killed two other teens a day before on a school soccer field in Montvale, New Jersey. Lee Weisbrod, 19, of River Vale, and Steven Fagan, 18, of Woodcliff Lake, died at a local hospital Saturday after suffering severe burns and trauma, authorities said.

The survivors, identified only as 16- and 19-year-old Montvale residents, were treated at a local hospital Saturday night and released, authorities said.

Blackout: New York Rep. Joe Crowley and other political leaders urged Gov. George Pataki on Sunday to designate a section of New York City suffering from a prolonged power failure a disaster area, making it eligible for federal aid.

By Sunday evening, electricity had been restored to 19,000 of an estimated 25,000 Consolidated Edison customers in the borough of Queens, which lost power during last week's heat wave.

There was still no indication when all power would be re-established, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was unclear why Queens suffered while the rest of the city did not.

[Last modified July 24, 2006, 01:34:57]