Toll Hits 21 as 12 More Die in Record-Setting East Coast Heat Wave

Twelve people died of heat-related causes Saturday in Philadelphia, raising the East Coast toll to 21 as a record-setting heat wave continued its assault.

Meanwhile, triple-digit heat fried New York City for a third straight day Saturday, tying a record dating to 1948. No relief was expected until Tuesday, when a frontal system from the West was forecast to arrive.

Philadelphia also tied its record for consecutive days of 100-plus temperatures. The last time its temperatures reached triple digits for three days in a row was in 1966.

In Massachusetts, 20,000 chickens died in the heat after lightning struck a henhouse ventilation system.

By noon Saturday, temperatures in Atlantic City had reached 97, breaking the old record for the date set in 1880. And those teeming to the New Jersey shore had to cross a scorching strip of sand before reaching the cool Atlantic.

“The sand is dangerous,” said Lt. Jack Schellenger of the Cape May Beach Patrol. “It’ll take the skin right off your feet.”

Miami’s temperature of 91 degrees at 1 p.m. compared with a 102-degree mark in New York and 100 degrees in Philadelphia.

It was the seventh straight day temperatures in Pennsylvania reached at least 95 degrees.

Seventeen of the 21 heat-related deaths reported last week have been in Philadelphia, with one each in New York City; Allentown, Pa.; Brooklawn, N.J., and Keene, N.H.

At least four of Saturday’s victims in Philadelphia had been drinking alcohol, a spokesman for the city’s health department said.

As the heat wave continued, many sought relief at beaches.

The shore was packed by thousands along the beach in normally moderate Maine, where the mercury surpassed 90 in many areas by noon. It was the same story in Massachusetts, where crowds packed the shoreline on Nantucket Island.

In Columbia, S.C., Saturday was the 16th day in a row with a high topping 90 degrees, and records were set in Greenville-Spartanburg, with 99 degrees, and Beaufort, with 101.

In the Charleston, S.C., area, social service agencies handed out hundreds of electric fans to the poor. “I thank God for it. It’s a blessing,” said Margaret Scott, 64. “Without this it would be miserable.”