Washington wilts as temperature rises and repair crews struggle with storm cleanup

Washington approached an unhappy Fourth of July as frustration grew Monday over the pace of power restoration, the forecast warned of more high temperatures and storms, and thousands spent a third miserable day without air conditioning.

As many people faced the Wednesday holiday with no prospects of electricity, the National Weather Service said the week could bring more hot and unsettled conditions, and several public Independence Day celebrations were canceled.

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(Courtesy of Mark Hoover/ COURTESY OF MARK HOOVER ) - Carolina Alcalde, with her parents Victor and Carmen. Alcalde, 38, of Adams Morgan, was in critical condition at George Washington University Hospital after a tree fell on her Friday as she rode her motorcycle up 15th Street NW, said a friend, Victoria Page Fulkerson.

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This came as Maryland reported three heat-related deaths, and a District woman was said to be recovering from a broken back after a tree fell on her Friday and left her partly paralyzed.

In the District, Mayor Vincent C. Gray requested in a letter that President Obama declare a disaster so the city can qualify for federal funding to cover damage from Friday’s storm.

Utility crews, meanwhile, struggled to repair damage inflicted by the storm that blew down trees, left more than 1 million people in the dark and claimed at least 17 lives.

The weather service noted that although the downpour was violent, May and June make up the peak thunderstorm season in the mid-Atlantic, and a similarly explosive tempest struck the area in 2008.

Hundreds of thousands of people were still without power Monday night, and others who at first had electricity in the aftermath of the storm lost it Sunday and Monday.

Sections of Northwest Washington and Prince George’s County that had power after the storm lost it Sunday, and parts of the National Harbor complex temporarily lost electricity Monday.

That failure was caused by a substation malfunction that was later repaired, Pepco spokesman Marcus Beal said. He added that the other delayed outages may have been caused by repair work or by tree limbs that fell after Friday.

At 10 p.m. Monday, Pepco said 98,000 of its customers were without power in Montgomery County, 41,000 in Prince George’s County and 34,000 in the District.

Baltimore Gas and Electric reported 17,000 without power in Prince George’s and 1,500 in Montgomery. And Dominion said 108,000 of its customers in Northern Virginia were without electricity.

Some people in Washington received unusual relief.

Responding to requests for help from two residential complexes, Metro and the city deployed two “cooling buses” — one to Deanwood, the other to Anacostia — to provide a place to cool off.

“We’re just so happy to have someone concerned,” Juanita Hitchens, 77, of Anacostia said Monday. “It was just a blessing.”

One bus was parked near a nursing home on Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue in Deanwood, and the other in front of Skyland Apartments, a complex on 24th Street SE.

“Metro didn’t have to do this,” said James Jackson, a Skyland resident.

In Maryland, health officials reported Monday the first three deaths related to the heat wave, one in Montgomery County, one in Wicomico County and one in Baltimore.

The officials declined to provide specifics except to say that the Montgomery County death was a man and that the two others were men age 65 or older.