California roasts in record-breaking heat
Emergency declared as power reserves dwindle
Sunday, July 23, 2006; Posted: 7:53 a.m. EDT (11:53 GMT)
Bank sign tells the story in Walnut Creek, California, on Saturday.
SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- Californians braced for more sweltering heat Sunday, a day after triple-digit temperatures smashed records across the state, strained air conditioners and prompted scattered power outages.
No relief was expected until at least midweek from a weather front that sent temperatures soaring even along the normally cool California coast and brought Midwest-style humidity into the usually arid Central Valley.
Records were set or tied Saturday at all five of the National Weather Service's recording locations in the Central Valley: 109 degrees in Sacramento, 111 in Redding, and 112 in Red Bluff, Stockton and Modesto.
A major Northern California power plant tripped off line as temperatures climbed, reducing electricity reserves below acceptable levels and prompting the state's grid manager to declare a "stage one emergency" while calling for conservation.
Emergency workers scrambled to help heat exposure victims in downtown Los Angeles, where 99-degree temperatures broke the 96-degree record set in 1960. Temperatures in the city's Woodland Hills section hit a record 119 degrees, topping the 116-degree high set in 1985.
"Today I realized I can't function with just a fan," Woodland Hills resident Susan Mitnik told the Los Angeles Times. "It feels like everything is radiating heat. My head begins to pound."
Records were also set throughout the San Francisco Bay area, including Livermore at 115 degrees, San Rafael at 108 degrees and San Jose at 102 degrees, according to the weather service. San Francisco's 87 degrees topped an 81-degree record set in 1917.
Power use across the state broke records Friday and again Saturday -- unusual because it was the weekend.
"We are drawing on all available power," said Paul Moreno, a spokesman for Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which serves northern and central California.
The California Independent System Operator, which manages the state's power grid, isn't predicting deliberate rolling blackouts of the sort that darkened the state during the shortages of 2000 and 2001.
But localized outages in the Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco Bay areas were blamed on high demand that overloaded equipment. More than 90,000 customers in the Bay Area were without power early Sunday, said PG&E spokeswoman Jana Schuering.
'I'm as mad as a hatter'
Max Grolwer lost his electricity after lightning hit a transformer near his home in Helendale, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
"I'm as mad as a hatter," Grolwer, 87, told the Victorville Daily Press. "I'm too weak now to even check on my lady neighbors."
Investigators believe Bakersfield gardener Joaquin Ramirez, 38, may have died of heat stroke after collapsing on the job late Wednesday, said division spokesman Dean Fryer.
The Kern County Coroner's office was investigating whether scorching temperatures were responsible for four deaths over the past two weeks.
Heat waves left much of the country sweltering last week, with temperatures soaring into the upper 90s and higher from coast to coast. Heat-related deaths were reported in Oklahoma, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota and Tennessee.
Rain, storms forecast elsewhere in U.S.
In the East, a low-pressure system was expected to bring rain from the Southeast through New England on Sunday. Showers and thunderstorms were possible along the Gulf Coast, while the Great Lakes could see weak showers.
Temperatures into the 90s were expected through the Plains and Gulf Coast, while 70s and 80s were expected in the Northeast.
Temperatures in the Lower 48 states Saturday ranged from a low of 41 degrees at Wisdom, Montana, to a high of 125 degrees at Death Valley, California.
