Heat Wave NYC: Live Updates as Dangerous Temperatures Arrive

OZY Fest and the New York Triathlon were canceled and cooling centers were opened as New Yorkers braced for a brutal weekend.
Alberto Reyes fumed. He had paid $50 yesterday to have his air-conditioner checked at an electronics repair shop in Williamsburg to make sure it would be ready for the heat. He took it home and turned it on. Only hot air came out. Now he was back in the shop, his blue polo shirt stained a few shades darker by sweat.
“The fan is useless,” Mr. Reyes complained in Spanish, pacing inside the graffiti-tagged warehouse of a store, where old A.C. units were piled outside. On a day like Saturday, as New York City and much of the country struggled to ride out a heat wave, Mr. Reyes saw his patience melt. “One cannot breathe properly without an A.C.,” he said.
New York roasted on Saturday as the heat approached 100 degrees, and thanks to air thickened by humidity, it felt even hotter. For some, the heat brought only discomfort. Yet officials feared far more perilous consequences. Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency lasting through the weekend, saying in a news conference on Friday, “We have not seen temperatures like this in at least seven years.”
Hundreds of cooling centers were opened to protect those most vulnerable to the heat, like older people and the homeless. But lawyers and activists complained that inmates in the city’s jails stifled in units without air-conditioning and, in many cases, while still having to wear uniforms with long sleeves and pants. There were also worries about an overuse of electricity jeopardizing the city’s power system, threatening a blackout.
Still, New York pulsed with life. The heat did little to stop some New Yorkers from venturing into the streets, however sweaty they might be. They filled museums, formed lines around the block for community pools and went to work.
“The bills have to be paid,” said Ron Mason, 51, a parks worker in a fairly empty Marcus Garvey Park in Harlem, wearing long pants, long sleeves and work gloves. “So, regardless of if it’s burning hot or freezing cold, I’ve got to be out here.”
Extreme heat blanketed much of the continent, stretching as far as the Great Lakes and the Texas panhandle. Across that swath of the country, the authorities mobilized in the same ways as they did in New York. In Washington, homeless people were ushered into shelters. In Boston, officials there also declared a heat emergency and opened cooling centers. In South Dakota, local officials had to shut down a busy interstate after the pavement buckled under the heat.