NEW YORK – A heat wave scorched the East Coast with another day of triple-digit temperatures Saturday, forcing power authorities to throttle back the voltage to protect straining electrical grids as residents cranked up the air.

Temperatures reached 103 degrees in Atlantic City, N.J., and 101 in Philadelphia, but humidity made it feel another three degrees hotter in most places across the region. New York’s Kennedy Airport reported 98 degrees with a heat index of 101.

In south-central Pennsylvania, authorities said a 63-year-old man in York died Friday of hyperthermia, or overheating, in an unventilated apartment where the temperature had reached 110 degrees.

A 94-year-old man in Carroll Township also died after his air conditioner stopped working because of a tripped circuit breaker.

In New York’s Times Square, tourists crowded into patches of shade along a baking Broadway, where Tony Eckinger, 34, was selling spray bottles with fans attached for $30. He had bought them at a drug store earlier in the day for $15.

“All the stores here are sold out,” Eckinger said. “Everybody’s trying to keep cool.”

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The heat will begin to ease today, but will remain in the 90s, National Weather Service meterologist Joe Pollina said.

“Monday is really when we see cooler air coming,” he said, with forecast temperatures sinking to the lower to middle 80s.

About 10,000 customers remained without power in New York City and its suburbs, and about 9,000 in New Jersey, after parts of the region’s electrical network failed. Power utility Con Edison said it was reducing the voltage in 69 other New York neighborhoods to ease the load caused by thousands of air conditioners.

 

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