The heat gripping the eastern half of the nation is exacting a mounting toll, claiming more than two dozen lives, withering crops and offering no promise of relief.
"It's like a blast furnace," Greg Woods said Monday as he mowed grass near Louisville, Ky., where it was 100 degrees for the first time in eight years.Forecasts say there's no relief in sight for much of the nation, though lower temperatures were forecast for parts of the upper Midwest and Great Lakes Tuesday. Heat advisories were posted again from the Mississippi Valley into the Southeast. Highs in the 90s were expected.
There have been at least 30 heat-related deaths in the past week: 11 in Illinois, eight in Ohio, nine in Missouri and two in North Carolina.
In addition, a 12-year-old boy was in critical condition Tuesday in Oklahoma City after suffering heat stroke during football practice, a spokesman for Integris Baptist Medical Center said.
"The heat's not going to go away," Hamilton County (Ohio) Coroner Carl Parrott said. "Unless people modify their behavior, there will be more deaths."
With 19 days of above-90 temperatures this year, Cincinnati officials extended the hours for city pools and air-conditioned centers.
Pennsylvania has declared a drought emergency, bringing mandatory restrictions on water use. In Des Moines, Iowa, community groups handed out electric fans and bottled water as they checked on shut-ins.
It was 102 in St. Louis on Monday, the hottest day in a 12-day span of temperatures above 90.