By Cheryl Wittenauer
The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS — The governor sent in the National Guard to evacuate people from their sweltering homes Thursday after storms knocked out power to nearly half a million St. Louis-area households and businesses in the middle of a searing heat wave that has killed at least 17 people across the country.
With forecasters expecting another day of 100-degree (37.8 Celsius) heat, utility crews raced to restore electricity, and Gov. Matt Blunt declared a state of emergency, granting the mayor’s request to send in 250 troops to take people to air-conditioned public buildings and to clear debris.
“We can’t overemphasize the danger of this heat,” Mayor Francis Slay said. “The longer the heat goes on and the power is out, the riskier it is.”
By midmorning, the temperature was 90 (32 Celsius), with a predicted high of 103 (39.4 Celsius). The region could get some relief on Friday, when the high was expected to drop to 88 (31 Celsius).
The storms tore through the city a day earlier, ripping off a section of airport roof and dumping it on a highway and blowing out windows of a hotel. At least three buildings collapsed, and more than 30 people were injured.
By midday, power had been restored to just over 100,000 customers, but new reports of outages kept coming in.
Residents coped as best as they could.
Stanley Shelton, 53, found a cool spot under a tree in a downtown park where piles of broken limbs and branches covered the grass.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this. I don’t know anyone with power,” Shelton said. “I’ll just sit in my yard with a big jug of water and wait for it to pass. Maybe I’ll take a couple cold showers. That works too.”
The death toll from the heat wave that has gripped much of the country for the past week rose to at least 17 people in seven states. Four more people died in the Chicago area, bringing the total number there to seven, officials said. Two have died in the Philadelphia area, two in Oklahoma City, two in Arkansas, two in Indiana and one each in South Dakota and Tennessee.
In Indiana, a 25-year-old woman taking medications that might have affected her body’s ability to stay cool died from heat exposure when temperatures inside her apartment reached 100 degrees, officials said Thursday. In Wisconsin, a 6-year-old girl was killed Thursday when storms knocked part of a tree onto a tent at a park.
Associated Press reporters Jeff Douglas, Jim Suhr and Jim Salter in St. Louis contributed to this report.