Power Still Out With Heat Wave Bearing Down

After the week's violent thunderstorms and torrential rain, residents across the Washington area braced for a second round of extreme weather: a heat wave.

With mercury expected to hit the high 90s today and tomorrow, and humidity making it feel as hot as 110 degrees, crews hustled to restore electricity to thousands of homes and businesses that have been dark -- and hot -- since Wednesday's storm. At 12:30 a.m. today, about 7,500 customers were still without power, many in Arlington, western Montgomery and northern Fairfax counties.

The National Weather Service urged caution because of high temperatures today and continuing through Monday. Smog in the region is expected to reach "Code Orange" levels, meaning it could be unhealthy for older or very young people and those exercising strenuously, local officials announced.

Fairfax and Prince George's counties opened weekend emergency cooling centers. In Montgomery County, outdoor public pools will be open two hours later than usual, until 8 p.m., today and tomorrow.

"You guys are in for multiple days of heat and humidity," said Alex Sosnowski, a meteorologist at Accuweather.com. "The combination of heat and humidity will make it seem like it's as high as 105 degrees or 110 degrees in the sun."

Beth Kevles of Chevy Chase was without power yesterday, although that was no surprise, she said. A transformer in her neighborhood has reliably gone out during major storms since she moved in 13 years ago.

"Every time there's a major storm expected, I immediately do all the laundry, because I know I won't have power for the week," she said.

To cope with the conditions, Kevles said she bought dry ice from a nearby store and ran an extension cord from a neighbor's house that had power from a generator -- enough to power the fridge, the telephone and a fan. She also took her two sons to the air-conditioned public library to read and get schoolwork done and plans to do the same today.

"We tried calling Pepco and said 'Look, it's going to be close to 100 degrees. Do you have any plan in place for people who don't have power?'" said Kevles, 46, who was eventually told power would be back by Sunday morning. "They said it was an 'act of God' and 'not our responsibility.' . . . I understand that this was a major storm, so you expect a lot of power outages, however, I'm frustrated. . . . I hope there are no deaths as a result, because the temperature is going to be very, very hot."

Thermometers are expected to reach 97 degrees today. Tomorrow's forecast calls for a high of 96 degrees. The record high of 98 degrees was set in 1999.

With nearly 50,000 runners and walkers expected on the Mall for today's Susan G. Komen National Race for the Cure, organizers said they are hopeful the morning won't be too hot. Even so, they arranged to bring in additional water and will have extra medical staff on hand.

"I'd ask people to wear sunscreen, and I'd ask people to know their limits and take it easy," said Emily Callahan, a race spokeswoman.

Across the region, power crews worked and cleanup continued. Power company officials said the work has been challenging because of the scattershot damage. Although some fixes restored electricity to dozens of homes, in other cases a fix that took just as long only affected one or two homes.

By midday yesterday, Montgomery officials said traffic signals had been restored at most of the nearly 100 intersections darkened by the storm, with just three remaining on portable generators.

After the storm, hundreds of thousands had lost electricity. Shortly after midnight this morning, Pepco reported about 4,200 customers without power in the District, Montgomery and Prince George's. Baltimore Gas and Electric reported about 300 outages among its area customers. And in Northern Virginia, about 3,000 customers were without power, Dominion Virginia Power reported.

To help homeowners clear storm debris from their yards, Rockville city officials waived requirements to cut and bundle branches for yard waste pickup. Before Monday, residents can drag branches less than eight inches in diameter and of any length to the curb and request pickup through the city's Web site.

Many people said they couldn't do much about the food thawing in their freezers and the lack of television, so they tried to take the experience in stride.

Lizette Benedi and Domingo Herraiz of Arlington slept in the basement, where it was a little cooler, and ditched about $300 worth of spoiled food. Their lights went back on about 3:30 p.m. yesterday.

Robert Chamberlin of Waterford in Loudoun County has been showering at his gym and hauling water from a backyard stream to flush the toilet.

But Jae Lee, 16, an 11th-grader at Langley High School, which was closed part of Thursday and yesterday, said the unexpected days off have been no treat. He had no Internet, no air conditioning and, with gas stations in his neighborhood closed, he couldn't fill up.

"I think I'd rather be in school, actually," Lee said.

Staff writers David A. Fahrenthold, Steve Hendrix and Martin Weil contributed to this report.