More Deaths as Nation Cools Off

Though temperatures dropped Sunday across the Midwest, the death toll from last week’s record-breaking heat rose higher, with 30 more deaths here blamed on the heat and humidity.

In much of the country, the worst had passed, with Sunday’s temperatures 10 to 20 degrees cooler across the Great Lakes and much of the upper Midwest. Chicago warmed to 81 by early afternoon, compared with a high of 104 on Friday.

But 50 more bodies were brought to the Cook County morgue from Friday to Sunday, said city Health Commissioner John Wilhelm, and officials expected the death toll to rise. A refrigerated trailer was brought in to store bodies until autopsies could be done.

The additional deaths Sunday brought the Illinois total to 80 and the nationwide number to at least 185 since July 19.

In Newnan, Ga., a 14-year-old boy confined to bed and requiring a ventilator to breathe died of heat stroke early Sunday in a home where the electricity had been turned off by the utility company.

The teenager’s battery-run ventilator continued to work without electricity, but the home’s air-conditioning shut down. The boy, who suffered a gunshot wound three years ago, had a body temperature of 107 when he died, said Coroner W.H. Pierce. He did not release the boy’s name.

Dennis McEntire of Newnan Utilities said the power was turned off as a result of miscommunication among the company, the mother and her new landlord.

The teen’s death was the second heat-related death in Newnan, about 30 miles southwest of Atlanta, and the third in Georgia in the recent heat wave.