PHILADELPHIA — Highways buckled across the country, the waters of Lake Michigan were unusually warm for this time of year and even a minor train derailment outside Washington was blamed on heat as the hot weather gripping much of the country worsened Saturday.
The heat sent temperatures soaring over 100 degrees in several cities, including a record 105 in Washington. St. Louis hit 106, and Indianapolis, 104.
Excessive-heat warnings were issued for several states in the Midwest as the days of smothering heat piled on. At least 30 deaths have been blamed on the heat and several others on the weather or a combination of the two.
Officials said the heat caused highways to buckle in Illinois and Wisconsin. In Maryland, investigators said heat likely caused rails to kink and led a green line train to partially derail in Prince George’s County, Md., on Friday afternoon. No one was injured, and 55 passengers were safely evacuated.
Thousands of mid-Atlantic residents remained without power more than a week after deadly summer storms and extreme heat struck the area, including 120,000 in West Virginia and about 37,000 in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. In the Washington area, Pepco asked customers to conserve power, saying the heat was stressing the system.
“This is becoming a black swan of heat waves, in the sense that it’s such a long heat wave, such a severe heat wave and encompassing such a large area,” said Chris Vaccaro, spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Abraham Lewis and his wife, Dzifa Fianoo of Lorton, Va., brought their 8-week-old son out for a walk in the 100-degree heat.
“I really don’t want to be out, but she’s a new mother and was feeling cooped up,” Lewis said. “Do you see how hot it is?” he said, wiping beads of sweat from his forehead more than once.
At New York City’s Penn Station, the air conditioning was falling short of full capacity. Amtrak officials have said for weeks that they have been trying to adjust it. The doors were left open at a half-dozen locations around the two-block-wide underground station.
“It’s so hot, I feel like I want to faint,” said Betty De la Rosa, 19, of the Bronx, who was working at a station doughnut shop.
Record temperatures were set in several places, including Indianapolis, Washington and Milwaukee. In Arkansas, Russellville reached 106 degrees Friday, breaking a record set in 1964.
Relief was on the way in the form of a cold front as the weekend ends, but forecasters expected it to bring more severe weather, too.
