Temperatures soared toward 100 degrees or more Tuesday along much of the East Coast, sending utilities into peak operation as air conditioners strained to keep up with demands, MSNBC.com reports.
Around noon, Washington, D.C., was at 101 degrees Fahrenheit. New York City and Newark, N.J., were at 100 degrees, while Boston and Philadelphia were both well above 90 degrees.
The National Weather Service issued heat advisories until 11 p.m. Wednesday for much of the Northeast, mid-Atlantic and parts of Michigan and Kentucky.
The heat was expected to put a heavy load on the power grid. New York could break a record for electricity use set on Aug. 2, 2006, Consolidated Edison spokesman Bob McGee told reporters. Utility workers in New York and Westchester County were working 12-hour shifts because of the increased demand.
In Philadelphia, the increased load from the heat blew fuses at transformers run by the Peco utility, MSNBC.com reports. About 1,900 customers were without power Tuesday morning, down from about 8,000 Monday.
Power outages are an example of the type of business interruption that can be costly and inconvenient. Are you prepared to stay Open for Business® if the power is out for an extended period of time? Start preparing now with help from the Institute for Business & Home Safety's free Open for Business® crisis planning and recovery tools. A business continuity plan can not only help your operation beat the heat, but also get ready for severe weather and other types of disasters.
Maybe you've heard, seen or read something about the new IBHS Research Center - a state-of-the-art facility where Mother Nature can be triggered on cue and houses, businesses, and other buildings will be subjected to her destructive forces. Today, we invite you to take a trip inside the lab through a video produced by 10 Connects.
It's been less than a year since IBHS set out to buy the land, break ground and begin construction. I think you will agree that tremendous progress has been made. You can keep track of the final phase of construction and watch a time lapse video of the lab coming together on the web cam at http://www.disastersafety.org/text.asp?id=research_center. Keep watching this blog for news about when the first tests will be conducted and information about the grand opening this fall.
As deadly tornadoes continue to make news, KCBD NewsChannel 11 in Lubbock, Texas, reports on an investment that could prove lifesaving for those at risk of twisters.
The National Storm Shelter Association is based in Lubbock and is the only organization of its kind in the United States. The association has certain guidelines that must be followed in order for a storm shelter to get a stamp of approval.
"Ordinary building codes and ordinary construction methods do not produce a structure or building that will withstand the extreme forces of a tornado," Dr. Ernst Kiesling, Executive Director of the National Storm Shelter Association, told KCBD.
The organization recommends products that have been tested for impact resistance at places like the Texas Tech University Research Center and approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). The storm shelters are designed for 150 mph winds.
Putting a storm shelter in your home can cost anywhere from $3,000 to $15,000. You can even have a storm shelter built in your existing home.
FEMA offers guidelines for building your own safe room in a home, business or community building. View and download the FEMA guidelines for residential, commercial and community safe rooms.
For certain communities, grant funding is available to help construct a safe room. Find out about the FEMA Residential Safe Room Initiative for manufactured housing communities.
Since December 2003, the Tornado Shelters Act has authorized communities to use community development block grant funds to construct tornado safe shelters in manufactured home parks. To be eligible, a shelter must be located in a neighborhood or park that contains at least 20 units, consists predominately of low- and moderate-income households, and is in a state where a tornado has occurred within the current or last 3 years. The shelter must comply with tornado-appropriate safety and construction standards, be large enough to accommodate all members of the park/neighborhood, and be located in a park/neighborhood that has a warning siren.
We have reported on this blog about the VORTEX 2 tornado tracking project made up of teams of weather researchers, including Tanya Brown, who will join the IBHS engineering team in August.
The VORTEX 2 crew witnessed yesterday's tornado outbreak in Oklahoma. Check out this video from The Weather Channel, where meteorologist Mike Bettes and Dr. Greg Forbes of The Weather Channel report from Vortex 2 to describe what they saw of a tornado that touched down in Oklahoma City, Okla.
Find out more about how to better protect your property against tornadoes with information from IBHS. Residents recovering from the latest round of tornadoes can learn how securing the roof-to-wall connections in their home or business when reroofing can reduce the risk of future tornado damage.
What will a new code requiring fire sprinklers in new one- and two-family dwellings and townhomes mean for insurers, builders and consumers? New videos and a white paper explore the issue.
The requirement has been part of the National Fire Protection Associations's Life Safety Code, Fire Code and Building Code since the 2006 edition. But it appears for the first time in the 2009 International Residential Code, which was adopted by the International Code Council(ICC).
The ICC promulgates the most widely adopted suite of model building codes in the United States. Although the ICC develops model codes using a consensus-based process, states and local jurisdictions are not required to adopt these model codes. Most states or local jurisdictions do adopt the model codes, however, because it helps standardize building and fire safety regulations over large geographic areas.
Many states will take up the issue of whether to adopt the sprinkler code provision in 2010, but the issue is already getting plenty of attention. The Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS) examines the fire sprinkler issue in a new white paper.
Among the issues surrounding the topic is how sprinklers might benefit new construction built using engineered lumber and other lightweight products. When lightweight construction meets fire, it sometimes doesn't hold up, according to testing by Underwriters Laboratories (UL). The UL research, along with other testing, is included in the IBHS white paper. It's also being explored by CNN's Gerri Willis, who got a dramatic demonstration that is featured in the video Housing Boom's Hidden Dangers.
Meanwhile, sprinkler proponents are also taking to their story to other news outlets. The Home Fire Sprinkler Coalition has been working with the CBS Early Show on a segment that airs tomorrow, Dec. 23, sometime between 7 a.m. and 9 a.m. EST.
This will be a live segment in a home in LaGrange Park, Ill., with fire sprinklers protecting the living room. The segment also features video taken two weeks ago during a house fire without sprinklers in Brentwood, Tenn.This video will be shown first, then CBS will go live to demonstrate how sprinklers would have made a difference, says Timothy P. Travers, who is the New England Regional Manager for the National Fire Sprinkler Association.
