(Bloomberg News circulated the following article on August 2.)
NEW YORK — New York, Boston, Washington, and much of the U.S. East Coast broiled today under temperatures that hit 100 degrees in some areas and threatened a New York electricity system damaged during a heat wave two weeks ago.
Transit agencies and commuter railroads from Washington to Boston slowed trains to keep tracks from buckling. Washington officials cracked open fire hydrants to cool residents. And in New York, the city and businesses flipped off switches, including the lights on the Empire State Building, to stave off possible blackouts on a day the power grid expected record demand.
“It’s a scorcher, baby!” said Arnold Messiah, an Italian ice vendor in the East Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan. “I’m an icy man and I’m not cooled off.”
From Washington to Boston, the temperature felt higher than 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 degrees Celsius) in many areas as the heat combined with high humidity. It was a record 100 degrees, feeling like 109, at LaGuardia Airport in New York at 4 p.m., the National Weather Service said.
Tomorrow will be even hotter and may be the hottest day “in the past several years” in the New York tri-state area, the weather service said. Officials cautioned the public to take precautions, including drinking lots of water, and asked residents to conserve energy.
“You can’t function very long outside in that kind of weather,” said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist at the weather service’s headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Midwestern Heat
The Midwest, where the heat wave began during the weekend and killed at least six people, suffered again today. St. Louis reached 98 degrees, feeling like 103 degrees, at 3 p.m. local time.
In Chicago temperature hit 99 degrees and felt like 106. At 4 p.m. local time, power to about 2,700 homes and businesses on the city’s south side was restored after more than 20 hours, Commonwealth Edison Co. said in a statement. The outage started last night at 7:30 p.m. after an underground cable failed.
Earlier, hundreds of senior housing residents were evacuated from their powerless apartments because of the heat, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Warnings of excessive heat were issued in 19 states, the weather service said. Mayors of New York, Boston and Washington declared heat emergencies, asking city agencies to help residents escape possible life-threatening temperatures.
New York State’s power grid expected a record demand of 33,500 megawatts today, topping a July 17 peak of 32,624 megawatts, said Ken Klapp, spokesman for the New York Independent System Operator, which runs the grid.
Cuts Sought
“We’ve got enough resources to meet demand, but we are calling on interruptible customers in New York and Long Island to cut back,” he said of customers that have agreed to cut power use by 655 megawatts in exchange for lower bills. One megawatt typically can power as many as 1,000 homes.
Consolidated Edison Inc., which owns New York City’s electric system, asked its 3.2 million customers to ease power usage. Cable breakdowns in Queens during a heat wave last month increased the risk of blackouts in this week’s heat, Con Edison Chief Executive Officer Kevin Burke told a City Council hearing yesterday.
The city shifted to backup generators for a Queens civil court building and half of the Rikers Island jail complex today, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a news conference. In Times Square, Lehman Brothers turned off its 2 ½-story electronic sign.
Dim the Lights
Tonight, the lights atop the Empire State Building will be shut off, Bloomberg said. The mayor is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.
The New York Stock Exchange has backup power that could keep trading open in the case of a blackout, spokesman Eric Ryan said.
The Canadian province of Ontario set a record for electricity demand, consuming 27,005 megawatts at 5 p.m. local time and topping the previous record of 26,160 megawatts set July 13, 2005, Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator said in a statement. The temperature reached as high as 97 degrees in Toronto today, Environment Canada said on its Web site.
In New York, some rail commuters face delays as Amtrak and local transit agencies slowed trains to keep tracks from buckling, trains from derailing and overhead wires that power the trains from sagging.
Train Delays
Amtrak imposes an 80-mile-an-hour (129-kilometers-an-hour) speed limit on the 456-mile Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington when the temperature reaches 95 degrees, spokesman Cliff Black said.
“It is a significant drop in speed, so we will see delays,” he said in a telephone interview.
Travelers faced delays at New York’s Pennsylvania Station, which serves Amtrak trains on the Boston-Washington D.C. route as well as New Jersey and Connecticut commuter lines, because of slower train speeds and also a broken-down train in a tunnel.
Philadelphia’s regional transportation system, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, or SEPTA, orders its trains to reduce speeds when temperatures go over 90 degrees, spokesman Richard Maloney said.
Both New York and Boston opened air-conditioned neighborhood “cooling centers” for people needing to escape the heat, and New York public pools were being kept open an extra hour.
In Washington, where 97 degrees felt like 107 at 4 p.m. local time, officials set up cooling centers and cracked open fire hydrants to offer residents a break, city spokeswoman Donneshia Taylor said.
Free Beaches
Connecticut waived fees at state parks and beaches because of the heat, Governor Jodi Rell said in a statement.
The heat made entrepreneurs out of some. A block south of New York’s Central Park, students Salim Jamal and Yassin Iglci sold bottled water for $1 each out of an ice-filled garbage can.
“We buy it for cheap and sell it expensive,” Jamal said.
California was the first to suffer from the latest heat wave, as a two-week blast brought the deaths of at least 136 people.
In Illinois, the Cook County medical examiner’s office reported two heat-related deaths yesterday, while a third was reported in the central part of the state, the Associated Press said. In Missouri, officials said a 71-year-old woman died in St. Louis during the weekend, and authorities in Oklahoma reported two more deaths that happened over the weekend, AP said.
The heat will continue to affect the Midwest through today before a cold front moves in from the north tomorrow, bringing the possibility of severe thunderstorms and some relief.
Northeastern and mid-Atlantic states won’t feel that relief until later in the week, meteorologist Feltgen said.