East, Midwest Sweat It Out; Power Reined In

A heat wave across the eastern half of the nation had people sweltering in temperatures well into the 90s Friday and led factories in the Midwest to shut down or scale back production.

With demand for electricity soaring toward record levels, utilities in nearly every Midwestern and Northeastern state asked customers to turn down air conditioners and reduce appliance use.

From Texas to New York, the mercury had climbed past 90 by noon.

The heat isn’t expected to break until next week in the Midwest. Lower temperatures were forecast for the Northeast today.

“A day like today, you’ll find yourself dizzy and sick real fast,” said Richard Babington, a landscaper in Montgomery, Ala., where it was close to 100.

In Florida, where unrelenting heat and sparse rain have fueled more than 1,000 fires that have burned about 158,000 acres since May 25, officials were hopeful Friday they could finally advance their firefighting strategy.

“We’re about to get to the point we can attack the fire instead of saving residences,” Gov. Lawton Chiles said in Ormond Beach.

Officials also were encouraged by thunderstorms Friday.

“They did a great job,” Noreen Majeau, an Ormond Beach resident, said of efforts to save homes.

Elsewhere, Virginia Power expected to set a peak demand record Friday. In Nebraska, near-record electricity use in the Omaha area Thursday contributed to an outage that left 6,500 homes without power for nearly five hours.

“It’s ugly. We’ve got weather forecast to hit a high today of 94 degrees with a heat index of 105 degrees,” said Steve Brash, a spokesman for Cinergy Corp., the parent of Cincinnati Gas & Electric Co.

Cinergy, which serves about 1.4 million electric customers in southwestern Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, hit record demand on its system Thursday.

Republic Engineered Steels of Massillon was ordered by Ohio Edison to shut down its furnaces. Workers were sent home at 10 a.m.

Many companies, especially those in heavy manufacturing, such as steel mills and refineries, buy interruptible power at a discount to regular power. In doing so they agree to be cut off on short notice if the power is needed to avoid blackouts.

Still, most workers across the heat-soaked regions stayed on the job.

In New York City, Etienne Pierre wore a sandwich-board sign advertising a suit sale and passed out fliers. “There is no greater punishment than working on a street corner in New York in the middle of a summer day hot like this,” he said.

Some people just ignored pleas to conserve energy.

“I work nights, so as far as sleeping during days like these, you have to have the air conditioning on,” said Neil Cormier, a postal worker in Peabody, Mass. “It’s kind of ridiculous. We just started getting hot days, and they’re already calling for a power watch?”