Toll rises as US heatwave continues
Washington – Relentless heat was forecast for much of the eastern United States for a fourth straight day today, with about 2.2 million customers without power after violent storms and soaring temperatures killed at least 15 people.
Power companies warned it could take several days to restore electricity completely in some areas as much of the United States sweltered in a record-breaking heatwave.
‘‘Hot and hotter will continue to be the story from the plains to the Atlantic Coast for the next few days,’’ the National Weather Service said.
Emergencies were declared in Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington because of damage from a rare ‘‘super derecho’’ storm packing hurricane-force winds across a 1100 kilometre stretch from the Midwest to the Atlantic Ocean.
About 2.2 million homes and businesses from Illinois to New Jersey were still without power today, with the biggest concentration of outages in the Washington area.
With power lines down across the region, the US Government told federal workers in the Washington area they could take unscheduled leave or work from home. Many schools and local governments also cancelled programmes or were closed because of outages.
The storms came amid a recordsetting heatwave that has seen temperatures top 38 degrees Celsius in several southern cities. In Atlanta, the mercury hit an all-time record of 41C on Sunday.
From St Louis to Washington, temperatures were forecast to hit more records today.
Excessive heat warnings and advisories continued over much of the mid-Mississippi Valley and southern states.
Strong to severe thunderstorms were possible across the southern mid-Atlantic region and northcentral United States, the National Weather Service said.
Thunderstorms and high winds battered eastern North Carolina yesterday, causing three more deaths on top of at least 12 caused by the deadly storms and heat in several states on Sunday.
Powerful storms that brought wind gusts of up to 145kmh yesterday knocked out power to more than 200,000 Commonwealth Edison customers in northeastern Illinois. About 100,000 remained without power, the utility said.
Utilities in Ohio, Virginia and Maryland described damage to their power grids as catastrophic.
Storms killed six people in Virginia and left more than 1 million customers without power. Two people were killed in Maryland, officials said.
A falling tree killed two cousins, aged 2 and 7, in New Jersey. Heat was blamed for the deaths of two brothers, ages 3 and 5, in Tennessee who had been playing outside in temperatures reaching 41C.