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Millions of Americans battle blistering heat
without power
Monday July 02, 2012 07:15:10 PM,
Arun Kumar, IANS
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Washington: Washington
was Monday slowly limping back to normal even as hundreds of
thousands of residents across central and eastern United States
continued to battle power failures caused by savage weekend
storms.
At least 16 people were killed from the series of storms that
knocked out power to millions over the weekend amid
record-breaking heat that has baked areas from Missouri to New
York to Georgia, according to CNN.
Even as crews worked round the clock to restore power, the
weatherman offered no respite from the blistering heat that is
expected to smother areas from Missouri to South Carolina Monday,
with at least 16 states under heat advisories or warnings.
"Hot and hotter will continue to be the story from the Plains to
the Atlantic Coast the next few days," the National Weather
Service said Monday.
"The widespread excessive heat warnings and heat advisories have
certainly decreased in coverage, but temperatures will remain well
above average across a large portion of the US."
Hundreds of thousands of people from Indiana through Maryland were
still without electricity even as the number of storm-related
power breakdowns came down from a peak of about four million.
Meanwhile, in Washington metropolitan area with nearly a
half-million households still without power and hundreds of
traffic lights still dark, non-emergency employees of federal
agencies have been given the option to take casual leave or work
remotely Monday.
Power companies are calling in reinforcements from as far away as
Missouri, Oklahoma and Canada, and the National Guard is pitching
in to help with storm cleanup, according to Washington Post.
By Monday morning, about 492,000 Washington area households and
businesses - nearly one in four of the region's electric customers
- were still without power, the Post said citing data on utility
web sites.
Many without power snapped up free bags of ice, others jumped into
swimming pools opened as cooling centres. Yet others went to the
movies or simply drove around in air-conditioned cars even as some
petrol pumps that reopened Sunday charged a higher price.
And even as the temperature at Dulles International Airport Sunday
reached a record for the day of 96 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking
the record of 94 F set in 1968, officials said it might be a week
before all power is restored.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at arun.kumar@ians.in)
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