Milions brace for flooding after heat and severe storms damper July 4th celebrations

Deadly storms and a heat wave marred America’s 250th birthday for swathes of the United States, leaving hundreds of thousands of utility customers without power. 

Millions of Americans across the Northeast experienced record-setting temperatures — thunderstorms in the Midwest downed trees, ruptured power lines and made transportation treacherous and complicated across multiple states.

In Washington, D.C., thunderstorms forced the temporary evacuation of thousands of people from the National Mall, which hosted the Freedom 250 Fourth of July celebrations that included a delayed address from President Trump and a massive fireworks show. In both the nation’s capital and New York City, images of lightning bolts and fireworks displays simultaneously illuminating the skies above  iconic landmarks circulated on social media.

The intense weather is expected to continue through the week, with 34 million people in the Northeast under a flood watch through late Monday. 

Northeast prepares for flooding 

Repeated rounds of heavy rain in the mid-Atlantic region could lead to flash flooding in the Northeast’s urban areas. Some areas, including Philadelphia and New York City, may receive up to four inches of rain between Monday and Tuesday. 

Strong to severe thunderstorms are also possible from the mid-Atlantic into the northern Plains, while additional showers and thunderstorms continue across the northern tier and parts of the Great Basin as a cold front pushes through the area.

Isolated tornadoes are possible in the Plains, though the main threats will be wind gusts and hail. 

Storms trigger power outages amid intense heat wave

More than 600,000 utility customers remained powerless in Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania on Sunday morning, according to the utility tracking site PowerOutage.us. That number was down from about 750,000 customers who lost electricity across those states, plus Wisconsin, Illinois and Ohio, at around noon on Saturday. Combined with Midwest storms, nearly 1 million people were left powerless at certain points.

In the New York area, a vicious storm struck late Friday, leaving hundreds of thousands of utility customers without power in the middle of a heat wave. The mercury hit a sweltering 98 degrees in Central Park Friday, CBS New York reported.

Atlantic City, New Jersey, set its highest temperature for July at 105 degrees, the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center said Saturday.

The high heat in the region helped fuel storms that produced wind gusts of up to 70 mph in places like Perth Amboy, New Jersey. Trains to New Jersey were canceled or delayed, and hundreds of trees were damaged or uprooted.

Hundreds of crew members from 12 states and Canada were on their way to Michigan on Saturday afternoon to help expedite restoration, CBS Detroit reported.

Severe weather forces some cities to cancel fireworks 

The storms that rolled through the Midwest and Northeast on Friday led multiple cities to cancel holiday festivals and reschedule fireworks displays.

Weather prompted cancellations of celebrations in Hartford, Connecticut, as well as Harrisburg and Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. In Boston, spectators at the city’s fireworks and concert event were told to briefly seek shelter, before events later resumed. An evacuation was ordered in Philadelphia, in addition to Washington. D.C., and, like the capital, New York and Pittsburgh moved forward with their fireworks shows but shifted the originally scheduled times to accomodate the weather.

Weather also forced temporary evacuations of thousands of people Saturday evening at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which hosted the Freedom 250 Fourth of July celebrations. Signs at the Great American State Fair posted an alert shortly after 7 p.m. ET, encouraging participants to leave the area and prompting crowds to gather in museums, subway stations and federal buildings near the Mall. Some waited in chairs and sat on the floor of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, seeking to cool off in the air conditioning.

The president had been initially scheduled to deliver remarks at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time, Freedom 250 organizers said, but the speech was ultimately delayed by about two hours.

“Storms bring luck to whatever the occasion. They also make events a little bit more exciting! We will wait it out, I don’t care if it’s 2:00 O’Clock in the morning, or in one hour from now. Looks like it is going to pass, they always do,” Mr. Trump said on social media ahead of his remarks Saturday night. “I will be there no matter what, but the ‘what’ usually turns out to be a good thing.”

Earlier, a 79-year-old woman experienced a heat-related emergency at the “Salute to America 250 Celebration & Fireworks” and was transported to a local hospital, according to the National Special Security Event Joint Information Center.  

On Friday, D.C. Fire & EMS said there were 45 patient contacts and 16 patient transports at the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, which temporarily closed due to extreme temperatures, but it was unclear how many calls were heat-related.

Washington also set a record for its all-time warmest low temperature at 84 degrees, the weather service said.

By noon on July Fourth, temperatures there and across parts of the Northeast were already soaring back toward triple digits.

“Despite the heat, which isn’t as bad as predicted, the crowds in D.C. are INCREDIBLE! The love of our Country has never been stronger!” Mr. Trump said earlier Saturday in another social media post.

3 children die in Wisconsin after boat capsized amid storm

Extreme weather turned a holiday weekend pleasure outing into a nightmare for a family in Wisconsin after their boat capsized on Geneva Lake during a storm, authorities said. Three children died. 

Six adults and a child were rescued from the water, but three children recovered from the lake after an intensive search were unresponsive to exhaustive lifesaving measures administered as soon as they were found, police said. A source that spoke to CBS News Chicago said the three victims are believed to all be under the age of 13.

Officials confirmed that all four children on board were wearing life jackets, police added.

As the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the Geneva Lake Law Enforcement Agency investigated the Geneva Lake tragedy, the city’s police department issued a statement blaming it on a “sudden and severe storm” that rapidly produced hazards for boats.

It said a privately owned recreational motorboat carrying 10 occupants, including four children, tried to race to safety before it was overwhelmed by severe wind and waves. As it took on water, it eventually capsized and sank, the release said.