CNN
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Breaking News Update, posted at 10:57 a.m. ET]
Nine people have died in the past eight days from heat-related illnesses in Webb County, Texas, the county medical examiner said.
“I come to you this morning with a heavy heart. In the last eight days in our county, we’ve lost nine residents to this heat,” Webb County Coroner Dr. Corinne Stern said at a court meeting of commissioners on Tuesday.
[Previous story, published at 9:28 a.m. ET]
Power use in Texas hit an all-time high on Tuesday, the state’s energy authority said, and the temperatures that led to the spike in use will continue to scorch parts of the U.S. on Wednesday, putting nearly 90 millions of people under heat alerts.
As customers battled triple-digit heat, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas that energy use reached 80,828 megawatts at 6pm on Tuesday. That surpassed the grid’s previous record of 80,148 megawatts, set on July 20, 2022. The authority expects another record to be set by Wednesday afternoon.
The state’s power grid is largely cut from the rest of the country and has faced frequent challenges in recent years as Texans have faced extreme heat and other stresses, including severe storms and tornadoes.
While the Texas Power Authority has assured residents that the power supply is sufficient to avoid blackouts, it is asking residents to reduce energy use whenever possible.
The heat wave that has plagued Texas for more than a week will expand north and east. More than 150 heat records could be broken over the next six days. The National Weather Service in Memphis warned that the warm front could bring dangerous highs of 110 to 115 degrees Thursday and Friday.
Several daily high temperature records were broken or tied Tuesday in Texas, including at Houston Hobby Airport, Corpus Christi, Laredo and Del Rio. Del Rio reached 110 degrees, marking his 10th consecutive day of record highs.
On Wednesday, 100-degree heat will spread north into Oklahoma and Kansas, as well as east into Arkansas and Louisiana. Oklahoma City expects a record high of 106, the weather service said.
The heat index, what the body feels like, will range from 100 to 115 degrees across large portions of the central and southern plains, as well as the lower Mississippi Valley. Temperatures will continue to reach 100 degrees across much of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas on Thursday and will also extend into parts of Missouri, Illinois, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.
Heat advisories are also issued for parts of Colorado and California. The heat in southeastern Colorado should peak Wednesday, with highs from the upper 90s to about 100 degrees.
In California, the heat will peak Friday and Saturday, with highs reaching 110. That includes much of the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valleys, as well as much of the Central Coast and Bay Area. Mount Shasta could be close to breaking its record high of 100 degrees on Friday, with a predicted high of 99 degrees.
More than 600 people in the United States die from extreme heat each year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As Americans face increasingly warmer temperatures, officials are urging people to take safety precautionsincluding staying hydrated, avoiding leaving pets and children in cars unattended, and finding cool indoor spaces to wait out the heat.
