Baltimore city worker Joe Lane gives away free bags of ice to residents at the Northwood Plaza shopping center in Baltimore on Monday, July 2, 2012. Around 2 million customers from North Carolina to New Jersey and as far west as Illinois were without power Monday morning after a round of summer storms. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)ERIC TUCKER and MATTHEW BARAKAT
WASHINGTON (AP) – Utility crews struggled to catch up with a backlog of millions of people without electricity for a fourth hot day Tuesday as frustration grew and authorities feared the toll of 22 storm deaths could rise because of stifling conditions and generator fumes.
Power was back for more than 1 million customers but lights – and air-conditioning – were still out for nearly 1.8 million other homes and businesses after powerful wind storms swept from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic late Friday, toppling trees and branches into power lines and knocking out big transmission towers and electrical substations.
Utilities were warning that many neighborhoods could remain in the dark for much of the week, if not beyond. But public officials and residents were growing impatient.
“This has happened time after time and year after year, and it seems as if they’re always unprepared,” said John Murphy, a professional chauffeur from Burtonsville, Md., who was waiting for Pepco to restore power Monday to the homes of himself and his mother and sister, who live nearby.