Western Heat Wave Kills At Least Six

Strain On Power Grid Leaves Hundreds Of Thousands In The Dark

(AP)  In Stockton, where temperatures reached a record-high 115 degrees, crews evacuated more than 100 patients early Sunday from the Beverly Healthcare Center after the nursing home's air conditioning gave out and two patients were hospitalized with heat-related stress, said police spokesman Pete Smith.

One patient died, and the other is in critical condition. The evacuated were taken to hospitals and care centers from Sacramento to Modesto.

Investigators were looking into possible criminal charges, although it is too early to tell whether the facility's operators were at fault, Smith said.

"It was very hot inside the facility, and you have to remember we're talking about elderly and infirm people who can't withstand the heat like a younger person would," he said.

The nursing home's phone was busy and a call to Beverly Healthcare's corporate headquarters in Fort Smith, Ark., was not immediately returned.

Another Central Valley nursing home, Woodland Skilled Nursing Facility, voluntarily evacuated its residents when managers realized its air conditioning system wasn't operating at peak capacity, according to the state Department of Health Services. No injuries were reported there.

In Modesto, a patient at Doctors Medical Center died Saturday of heart failure apparently caused by the heat after being admitted with a 106-degree temperature, hospital officials said.

Two others were hospitalized with 108-degree temperatures, including one who remained in critical condition Sunday.

In Kern County, authorities are investigating four possible heat-related deaths, including two this week.

Bakersfield gardener Joaquin Ramirez, 38, may have died of heat stroke after collapsing on the job late Wednesday. And on Thursday, a woman, whose name was not released, was found dead along a bike path in Ridgecrest, said John Rensselaer, Kern County's supervising deputy coroner.

The coroner's office also was looking into two deaths from last week - one of a man whose body was found near an abandoned vehicle off Interstate 5 near Bakersfield, and one of a man found dead with two empty water bottles on the Pacific Coast Trail near the Tehachapi Pass. Neither have been publicly identified and the causes of death would not be known for several weeks, Rensselaer said.