Heat Wave Victims To Receive Aid
As temperatures are expected to reach the triple digits for the 23nd straight day, Texans are receiving government assistance for their air conditioning bills.
President Clinton already has declared Texas and 10 other southern and southwestern states a disaster area because of the heat and drought, making available $100 million in federal aid.
At least 94 deaths have been blamed on the heat wave, which has gripped the Lone Star state since June 1. The rising mercury has also caused $1.5 billion in crop damage and thousand of wildfires.
Forecasters are now saying that this may end up being the hottest summer ever, breaking the records set in 1980.
The heat has been unforgiving in other states as well. In Oklahoma, the death toll since June 21 has risen to 15 from heat-related illnesses. In Oklahoma, whatever crops haven't been claimed by the drought have been ravaged by grasshoppers.
Not much can be done to stop the insects as they descend on southern Oklahoma, experts say.
"Just pray for rain and hope we get good rain that greens up the vegetation," Miles Karner, entomologist at the Oklahoma State University Research and Extension center in Altus, said Monday.
The heat also spelled trouble for firefighters in the woods and dry, rugged terrain of southeast Oklahoma.
"It's not just like 110 degrees outside. It's superheated," said volunteer Ed Reed from a rural department southwest of Broken Bow. "With our firefighting clothes on, we're all but boiling."
Pat McDowell, assistant director of the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture's forestry division, said 141 fires have burned 2,100 acres since July 6 in the state's far southeastern tip.
State and federal agencies are bolstering their fire crews in and around the Ouachita National Forest because of outbreaks blamed on arson and extraordinarily hot, dry weather.
In Seattle, the extreme temperatures buckled freeway concrete Monday. The concrete rose 12-15 inches because of the intense heat and traffic on the Interstate 5 southbound lanes near Bridgeport Way south of Tacoma, said Clarissa Lundeen of the state Transportation Department.
The highway re-opened shortly before 6 a.m. Tuesday after crews worked overnight to repair it.
Ozone levels have reached unhealthy levels in Seattle and in Southern California, as 90-degree weather was expected to continue creating smog conditions through Wednesday.