Tens of thousands of residents across the Midwest and East—notably New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio—reported power outages Monday due to this week’s heat wave, with utility providers working to restore power to all customers by the end of the day.
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FirstEnergy, an Ohio-based utility provider, reported that nearly 50,000 customers in northeast Ohio are without power as of 2:25 p.m. EDT, according to WKYC Studios—around 13,000 of those are reported in Cleveland.
The Philadelphia electric utility provider PECO said Monday it is working to restore power for almost 6,000 homes, with some still affected by straight line winds of up to 70 mph that whipped through the area Thursday, ABC reports.
ConEdison reported over 14,000 customers facing full or partial power outages Monday afternoon, with the New York City utility provider warning parts of Queens to conserve energy after reducing voltage in the area by 8% while crews repair equipment “to maintain reliability.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency in 32 counties, including the most affected areas like Queens, in a statewide alert Sunday ahead of severe thunderstorms and forecasted extreme heat. Outages also affected conEdison customers in Brooklyn and Staten Island, with most problems attributed to “weather-related” outages, according to the company’s live outage map. The company also asked customers to limit “unnecessary use of air conditioning” and refrain from charging electric vehicles until repairs have been completed. City officials in Akron, Ohio, told WKYC Studios “rolling blackouts” may occur in the impacted area, which will rotate the outages every 90 minutes for up to 12 hours. Residents in the Philadelphia area told ABC Thursday’s severe storms were “reminiscent of Hurricane Sandy,” as outages linger due to extreme heat.
Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota faced temperatures of up to 100 degrees Saturday, with the heat spreading eastward to major cities like New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., on Monday. Around 148 million people were under heat alerts Monday across the Midwest and about 75 million people in nearly a dozen urban areas like Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Baltimore were under alerts, according to NBC News—with temperatures above 100 expected in some major cities.