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PHILADELPHIA — The eastern U.S. cooked for another day Wednesday as unrelenting heat promised to push thermometers past 100 degrees, buckled roads, warped rails and pushed utilities toward the limit of the electrical grid's capacity.
Philadelphia, Richmond, Va., and Baltimore, where the high on Tuesday was 105, were already at 97 degrees by late morning and were expected to hit 100 degrees later in the day. Triple digit forecast extended as far south as Charlotte, N.C. Cities farther north, including New York, were predicted to get into the high 90s, though higher humidity was expected to make it feel hotter.
The crux of the heat was situated over the Philadelphia area, where an excessive heat warning was put into effect until 8 p.m. The National Weather Service said high humidity levels could make it feel as hot as Tuesday.
It was already 71 degrees, hazy and humid before 7 a.m. at a golf course in suburban Albany, N.Y., where gardener Sarah Breglia was bracing for another sweltering work day. She said her strategy for getting through the day was to drink lots of fluids and place bottled water at several locations around the Guilderland golf course.
"I try to stay in the shade in the afternoon," she said. "We do all the areas in the sun, all the sweeping, cleaning up, as early as possible. In the afternoon, we try to keep it cool."
Records shattered
On Tuesday, at least 26 cities broke records for the warmest July 6, according to the Weather Channel. Baltimore saw the highest temps among those cities at 105, followed by Trenton, N.J., at 104, and New York, Newark, N.J., and Wilmington, Del., all at 103.
Baltimore also broke its record for most days above 90 degrees this far into the year: 24 days so far, compared to the past record of 22 in 1991, the National Weather Service reported. And it broke its record for most days above 100: 4 so far this year, compared to 3 days set in 1966 and 1898.
Washington, D.C., tied its record from 1991 of 26 days above 90 this far into the year.
The heat has forced nursing homes with power problems to evacuate and buckled highways near Albany, N.Y., and in the Philadelphia area. On New York's Long Island, the Red Cross said local merchants would help to distribute free bottled water to day laborers.
Transportation officials cut the speed of commuter trains in suburban Washington, D.C., and New York when the tracks got too hot. Extreme heat can cause welded rails to bend under pressure. Some train service to New Jersey was canceled.
Rail riders in New Jersey and Maryland were advised to expect delays again Wednesday. Philadelphia's transit system said it was slowing trains to reduce the amount of electricity needed to run them.
Residents of two Rhode Island beach towns, Narragansett and South Kingstown, were hit with an added layer of inconvenience: They were banned from using water outdoors and were asked to boil and cool their water before using it. The high temperatures combined with the busy holiday weekend for tourists created higher-than-expected demand, causing water pressure to drop and increasing the chance of contamination.
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Thousands without power
Scattered power outages have affected customers up and down the coast and usage approaches record levels.
In New York, Consolidated Edison Inc said it restored power to about 18,700 customers over the past 24 hours, but still had 6,300 homes and businesses suffering in the heat without service.
The utility urged customers to cut back on power usage on Wednesday.
In the Washington, D.C., area, nearly 2,000 customers were without power Wednesday.
New Jersey's largest utility, Public Service Electric & Gas, reported about 6,500 customers without electricity.
Tatiana Solis, 17, was getting ready to deliver newspapers Wednesday in New York City, where forecasters predicted a high of up to 99 degrees.
The hot weather has made her work difficult.
"I have asthma and when it's hot, it's too exhausting," she said. "I can't breathe."
Heat slowing machines
It was so hot Tuesday that even machines had to slow down. Transportation officials cut the speed of commuter trains in suburban Washington, D.C., and New York when the tracks got too hot. Extreme heat can cause welded rails to bend under pressure. Some train service to New Jersey was canceled.
Rail riders in New Jersey were advised to expect delays again Wednesday.
Karin Korpowski-Gallo, a spokeswoman for the National Zoo in Washington, said most of its animals have access to air conditioning.
"The pandas aren't big fans of this kind of heat," she said of the zoo's most famous animals. "They choose to stay indoors and they sleep a lot."
In Boston, the sweltering temperatures pushed a window washing company to adjust its hours to prevent employees from working during the hottest part of the day.
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Victor Cruz, 24, usually starts his day with Cliffhangers Inc. at 6:45 a.m. But on Wednesday, he was washing ground floor doors and windows at Boston's Intercontinental Hotel starting at 4 a.m., so his day would end at noon, instead of 3:30 p.m.
"It's just exhausting," Cruz said, pining for the days he used to work in an air-conditioned bank. "I actually took Tuesday off because it was just too hot. When it's like this we'll sit in the van every so often with the air conditioner on for a few minutes just to cool down."
Urban 'heat islands'
The record-breaking cities and other dense, built-up areas are getting hit with the heat in a way their counterparts in suburbs and rural areas aren't. Cities absorb more solar energy during the day and are slower to release it at night.
Scientists have known for years about these so-called heat islands, urban areas that are hotter than the less-developed areas around them. They say cities, with their numerous building surfaces and paved roads and lack of vegetation, just aren't well designed to release summertime heat.
Field Notes: Searching for New York's hottest job
With people cranking up the air conditioning Tuesday, energy officials said there was tremendous demand for electricity but the grid didn't buckle. Usage appeared to be falling just short of records set throughout the Northeast during a major heat wave in 2006.
Meteorologists in some places began calling the current hot stretch a heat wave, defined in the Northeast as three consecutive days of temperatures of 90 or above.
New Jersey's largest city, Newark, handily beat that threshold, hitting 100 for the third day in a row.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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