Several days of scorching temperatures are suspected to have caused at least 19 deaths in New Jersey as a heat dome that had settled above parts of the central and eastern United States gives way to severe storms that have knocked out power to close to 1 million homes and businesses.
New Jersey officials said Saturday that they began seeing what they believe are heat-related deaths as early as Thursday with most occurring in the central and northern parts of the state.
“Unfortunately, many of these individuals were found in homes without air conditioning,” state Health Commissioner Dr. Raynard Washington told reporters Saturday. "A few were outside their residences, some on the street and some even in parked cars.”
New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill called the current weather “the hottest stretch we’ve seen in over 14 years.”
“The heat's hitting all of us, not just seniors, not just with underlying health conditions, people of all ages,” Sherrill said.
On Thursday, LaGuardia Airport in New York set a new record high of 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius), topping the previous record of 101 F (38.3 C) set in 1966, according to Bryan Jackson, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center.
Trenton, New Jersey, reached 101 F, which broke the record of 100 F (37.7 C) set in 1901. Newark’s high Thursday was 105 F (40.5 C).
Atlantic City, New Jersey, hit 103 F (39.4 C) on Thursday, breaking the city’s record of 100 F set in 1966, Jackson said. Atlantic City reached 105 F on Friday and 106 F (41.1 C) on Saturday.
Heat domes can be dangerous and combine very high temperatures with high moisture, Jackson said.
“In a lot of cases they also had direct sunshine,” he said. “It was relentless. It was multiple days. It was not as cool overnight, as well. The low Friday morning in Atlantic City was 80. The body can't recover as well. You just have that multiple day buildup and too much added stress on the body.”
But even as the heat moved to the east, lowering temperatures a bit, severe storms blew in with heavy winds that toppled utility poles and split trees, causing their boles and branches to fall onto power lines.
About 900,000 utility customers in parts of the central, eastern and southern United States were without electricity early Sunday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.com.
More than 223,000 customers in Michigan and close to 170,000 in Pennsylvania had lost power.
PPL Electric reported 121,417 without power Sunday morning, including about 47,000 in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area.
Central Hudson in New York State reported that it had more than 430 reported downed wires on Sunday. The utility said about 50,000 customers were affected by the storm and that about 650 still were without power Sunday.
Amanda Vesper was putting her children to bed Friday evening when the first storm rolled through the Detroit area, knocking out her power.
“It didn't seem that awful. It got quite windy,” said Vesper, 40, of Commerce Township.
As of late Sunday morning, the electricity still was out.
“We've been going back and forth between a hotel and our home because we have dogs there,” she said. “We really can't stay there. I have a small child with autism. Our well runs on an electric pump.”
The outage also ruined the family's July 4 celebration.
“We had planned on having company over at the house, but had to cancel,” Vesper said. “I went grocery shopping. I'm hoping my freezer holds.”
Jackson, with the Weather Prediction Center, said Sunday will see heavy thunderstorms in and around the Cleveland area. Those storms then will shift eastward and move into Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York — where chances exist for flash flooding, he added.
