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More triple-digit heat has East sweating

Coeur d'Alene Press | UPDATED 15 years AGO
| July 8, 2010 9:00 PM

NEW YORK (AP) - It's blistering. Scorching. Steamy. Brutal. Baking. Torrid. Ovenlike. It's run-out-of-adjectives hot.

"A volcano - that's what it feels like to me," said Wayne Reid, mopping his brow and swigging bottled water after walking three blocks to a New York subway station Wednesday morning. He was dressed for the heat - already a sticky 90 degrees and headed into triple digits - in shorts and a tank top, but it didn't matter.

"You could run butt-naked out there and still be hot," he said.

Heat waves are more oppressive in big cities, because concrete, asphalt and steel absorb more solar energy during the day and are slow to release it after the sun goes down, offering people little relief at night.

With triple-digit highs recorded from New York to Charlotte, N.C., roads buckled, nursing homes with air-conditioning problems were forced to evacuate, and utilities called for conservation as the electrical grid neared its capacity.

New York, where many buildings predate the age of climate control and many people don't have cars, is not for the faint of hot. The mercury hit 100 by 3 p.m. Wednesday after topping out at 103 on Tuesday.