Hint of relief coming after 11-day heat wave

You know it’s bad when relief means the temperature has dipped to 102 degrees.

A day after flirting with the all-time heat record, the Washington area awoke to a slightly less punishing reading on the heat index Sunday.

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Visitors are flocking to museums to escape the heat, which is expected to continue into the weekend. Utilities are urging customers with power to conserve.

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Learn how your body adjusts to the summer heat.

But who could tell? It still felt as if the region had been buried alive in heat, as if the air itself was an enemy. Many felt trapped indoors, while those who ventured outside planned their movements between air-conditioned venues the way generals plan island-hopping campaigns.

But as a cold front inched in from the north, indications were that an end had finally come to the 11-day heat wave that broke records for its intensity and duration. The heat forced the cancellation of some outdoor events; sent people to pools, theaters, libraries or other air-conditioned ­oases; and even bent Metro’s steel tracks enough to derail a Green Line train.

By 9 p.m. the temperature at Reagan National Airport was 84 degrees. Not enough to cause a chill, but 18 degrees below the day’s high.

Meanwhile, the front triggered a severe storm in Spotsylvania County, Va., that damaged three commercial buildings and a house, injuring at least seven people in a neighborhood at the county’s northeastern edge, said Mark Kuechler, a county fire and rescue spokesman. Jared Klein, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said a decision would probably be made Monday on whether to survey the damage to determine if it was caused by a tornado.

The relentless heat has been all the worse because millions had to endure it without power, which was knocked out in a freakish storm June 29. And yet when the first hint of relief arrived — a cold front sneaking over the region on Sunday — it brought another line of powerful thunderstorms that again pitched some neighborhoods into darkness.

Dominion Power said that 23,000 customers lost service about 6:15 p.m. after storms and lightning struck in Northern Virginia, but the utility had reduced the number of outages to about 4,200 by late Sunday night. And Pepco reported only 300 outages in the District and Maryland.

Pavement buckled in the heat on Route 50 in the Bowie area. Only one lane was available for use Sunday afternoon after a 20-foot section of pavement buckled about 2:35 p.m. in the eastbound lanes, west of Route 301, the state police said. Some vehicle damage was reported when the incident first occurred, Sgt. John Revel said.

The good news is that forecasters predicted temperatures mostly in the 80s for the next week or so.

For much of the weekend, service was halted on part of the Green Line, after a derailment on Friday that Metro officials said was caused by the heat. On Sunday night, Metro restored service on a single track between the Fort Totten and Prince George’s Plaza stations. The transit agency said it was trying to restore full service for Monday morning.

While some exasperated residents — including a Bethesda family menaced by what appeared to be a live wire down near their home — were still contacting Pepco and other utilities about restoring power lost more than a week ago, regional officials were beginning to assess the financial impact of the “derecho” and the heat wave.