U.S. HEAT WAVE MAY BREAK SOON

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22730, 31 August 1948, Page 5

U.S. HEAT WAVE MAY BREAK SOON

(10 a.m.) NEW YORK, Aug. 30. With the heat wave deathroll now at 173, the nation has been promised a cool change by tonight. Meanwhile, almost the entire country swelters in a mass of sticky 100-degree air that rolled up from the tropics five days ago and broke temperature records throughout the nation. The heat wave has made heavy inroads into the nation’s water reserves, but no serious damage to crops has yet been reported. New York State, with 23, has recorded the highest number of deaths from the heat. At Charleston, West Virgina, the temperature soared to 105 for the second successive day and throughout the nation temperature records are being smashed every hour. Employees of the Remington Rand Company at Ilion, New York, however, had a snowfight in a temperature near IUO degrees. They had been told to shift bags of coal to prevent them being ignited by the fierce sun and found at the bottom a huge pile of snow that had been there since the winter.

In New York, city council employees who had been ordered to turn off tire hydrants because of the water shortage were attacked by street bathers. One employee was taken to hospital and the rest given police protection. The hydrants have been turned on since the beginning of the heat wave to allow sweltering residents of Manhattan to cool off.