PHILADELPHIA (AP) _ Storms rolling through southeastern Pennsylvania left 164,000 customers without power only hours after record-breaking temperatures capped a four-day heat wave blamed for the deaths of two Philadelphia women.
Story and photos from the Valley will be posted shortly.
The thunderstorms pounding the area Tuesday night downed trees and power lines, especially in Montgomery and Chester counties, a PECO spokesman said.
Power was knocked out to about 65,000 customers in Montgomery County, 55,000 in Chester County, 10,000 each in Bucks County and Philadelphia, and 1,000 in Delaware County, PECO spokesman Cameron Kline said. He said restoring service would be time consuming.
"This will be a multiple-day event," Kline said, citing "significant" damage from lightning, winds and fallen trees. "The system has been working very hard for the last several days, and then we have this next wave that comes through with more strain."
Allentown-based PPL Corp. said the storms knocked out power to more than 23,000 customers in central and eastern Pennsylvania.
More than 90,000 PECO customers were still without power Wednesday morning. PPL said 20,000 of its customers remained without power, including more than 10,000 in the Bloomsburg area.
High winds knocked two loaded truck trailers on their sides at Strong Pools and Spas on Route 11, 3 miles south of Danville, and toppled about 10 trees around the nearby Wrays River Front Campground.
"That's the closest thing to a tornado I ever want to see," Drew Laubach, who lives at the edge of the campground, told the Press Enterprise of Bloomsburg.
The heat wave peaked earlier Tuesday. The National Weather Service office in Mount Holly, N.J., said the mercury hit 98 degrees in Philadelphia at 3:22 p.m., one degree higher than the record of 97 set in 1964.
Deborah Wright Jean-Louis, 65, was found dead early Tuesday in an Overbrook home, while Genevieve Chmielewski, 82, was found Monday afternoon in a Port Richmond home, said Jeff Moran, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's office.
The medical examiner's office ruled both deaths heat-related, Moran said. Both homes lacked air conditioning, and the windows of the Overbrook home were closed, he said.
Delaware County authorities said a 14-month-old boy left in a car for several hours was rushed to the hospital. Marple Township police said a relative was supposed to take the boy to day care but drove instead to the CHI Institute trade school.
"He forgot that the baby was in the car," Superintendent Thomas Murray told WPVI-TV.
The man found the child a few hours later and called for help, police said. The boy was taken to Bryn Mawr Hospital and then to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, where there was no immediate report on his condition.
Philadelphia public schools and Catholic elementary schools closed early for a second day.
Troy Pierce, a contractor pouring concrete in Center City Philadelphia on Tuesday afternoon, said he'd been working in the sun since 7 a.m. and it had been "unbearable."
"I drank two gallons of water and never had to go to the bathroom," Pierce said.
The National Weather Service kept an excessive heat warning in effect until 8 p.m.
Forecasters issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the area as the storms approached with a cold front moving from west to east. Across the state, the storms brought a break from the oppressive heat and humidity.
"For now, the worst is over," said Rob Radzanowski, a forecaster for the National Weather Service in State College. "Of course, it's only mid-June."
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Storms cut power to 164,000
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