10:47 AM CDT on Friday, July 21, 2006

By JIM SALTER, Associated Press Writer

Friday News 4 team coverage

Watch News 4 coverage (Wednesday night)

PHOTOS: Wednesday evening | Day after

Cell phone video: Inside Busch Stadium during the storm
Home video: Eureka storm

POLL: Were you affected by the storm? Tell us about it

Airport travel delays

Post your storm photos on KMOV.com | Viewer storm photos

School closings

National Guard to evacuate people in St. Louis

Cooling centers: (Missouri) Call 1-800-427-4626, If you can’t get to the cooling center call 1-800-427-4626 and they will arrange for a cab to pick you up. (Illinios) Click here or call 1-800-843-6154

Energy Care: www.Energycare-stl.org or call (314) 773 – 5900

Cool Down St. Louis: www.cooldownstlouis.org

Pet cooling center: Drop off pets at the St. Louis Humane Society on your way to work an pick them up on the way home. Its located at 1201 Macklind Avenue. (314) 647-8880

Click here for the Ameren outage map

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Overcast skies provided some relief Friday for hundreds of thousands of people without electricity to run air conditioners as the nation sweated through a week of stifling heat.

KMOV

Mobile home on Interstate 370 on the Discovery Bridge overturned due to high winds.

With about 320,000 homes and businesses still without power, National Guard troops, police, firefighters and volunteers were back out knocking on doors and offering bottled water as they checked on elderly residents.

One health officials likened the way the city's older brick homes retain heat to a furnace in the summertime.

"I think, for the most part, all the residents we checked on were doing all right," Mitchell Kester, spokesman for the Guard's 1140th Engineering Battalion, said Friday.

Gov. Matt Blunt sent troops to St. Louis on Thursday, the same day Mayor Francis Slay declared the city a disaster area. The city got a meteorological punch Wednesday: a massive storm that knocked out power to more than half a million customers, followed by another day of near-triple-digit heat.

Friday morning, 320,000 homes and business were still without power, utility company AmerenUE said. The company said it could be four days before power is restored. Ameren Corp. has called the outtage the worst in its 100-plus year history.

The heat wave sizzled much of the nation this week and has been blamed for at least 20 deaths, including a 93-year-old St. Louis woman found dead in a home without power to run the air conditioning.

On Friday, the weather was cooler -- the high was expected to reach only the upper 80s and temperatures were expected to stay below 90 degrees through early next week. But there was new cause for alarm. By late morning, part of the region was under a thunderstorm warning.

Around the region, people began cleanup from Wednesday's storms that brought 80 mph winds and heavy rain. In St. Louis, the storms tore off a section of airport roof and dumped it on a highway. Windows were blown out of a hotel restaurant and a press box at baseball's Busch Stadium. At least three buildings collapsed, and more than 30 people were injured.

Then there was the heat.

John Swapshire, 39, grabbed the next-to-last window fan at a hardware store for $14.99. The electricity at his home was out, but he had a gas-powered generator.

"I had to go to six stores to get this. They were either closed because of the electricity or sold out," Swapshire said. "I don't think you can buy a cube of ice in all of St. Louis, either."

Stanley Shelton, 53, found a cool spot under a tree in a downtown park where piles of broken limbs and branches covered the grass.

"I'll just sit in my yard with a big jug of water and wait for it to pass," Shelton said. "Maybe I'll take a couple cold showers. That works too."

In New York, some have suffered through five days of blackouts that were being blamed on a mysterious electrical problem. The power outages have taken place over a span that included two of the hottest days of the year. An estimated 25,000 customers remained without power, Consolidated Edison said in a statement Friday.

Medical examiners were determining whether the death of a 92-year-old Independence man whose air conditioning had stopped working was heat-related, and an East St. Louis, Ill., man died while walking near downed power lines.

Other deaths were reported in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Indiana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Kansas and Wisconsin.

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Associated Press writers Jeff Douglas, Cheryl Wittenauer and Jim Suhr contributed to this report.

Yes, we were lucky compared to most. A 50 ft tree fell and almost hit our home. Just missed my car as well. Thank goodness we were not effected by the power outages!

We were hit very hard and are lucky enough to have had our power restored around 9:47 am Saturday. Ameren UE is working very hard to resolve this problem to all their customers, and I must give them a big thank you! On the other side of the coin Matt Blunt has been there for St. Louis city only. St. Louis county, and other cities & counties in MO did not get his help.
Hey Matt Blunt! You're suppose to be there for all Missouri citizens that are affected by the power outage and not just for St. Louis city.
You will not get my vote to get back into the govenor's office. As far as Jim Talent and Al Sharpton are concerned. Instead of protesting & speaking out against Ameren UE Let us see both of you clowns work directly with the electicity and see if you can do a better job than Ameren is doing. I bet neither one of these two know the first thing about how to restore electric.

OHH That was fun I was in Springfield IL we go them first but ill tell ya it was cool i saw a huge wall cloud then over a little bit there was a funnel cloud it was awsome

We were hit by the storm just got power back but have been off work. Don't know how I am going to pay my bills. Is there anything we can do?

yes, i was hit very hard by wednesday's storm.i had no electricity for 4 days,all of my food i had to discard. all of my insulin for my diabetes had to be discared.i have yet to replace it because i dont have any more money ,trying to keep gas in the car to run the air.the first 3 nights after the storm,i slept in my car with the air conditioner running to get relief from the heat.i live in the 2800 block of nebraska in south st,louis.

Remember that old song from the 70's or 80's?
You an't seen nothing yet. Maybe this was a wake-up call. Think about it. An don't forget to pray for one another. M.C.S.

We were hit by Wednesday's storm and we lost our electricity right about 7:20 or so. It was off for 21 hours. It came back on Thurs. at 4 p.m. I was so happy I emailed a thank you note to Ameren. I knew we'd be okay, because we still had water, but i was worried for our parakeets. They did fine till the apt. hit 90 degrees. Then they began panting alot and holding their wings away from themselves. We had given them extra water, set up their bird bath for them, which they never touched, and draped wet towels over their cage. About 15 minutes or so after they started panting and holding out their wings, our power kicked back on. According to the thermostat it was 92 in our apt. Within minutes it cooled down enough that the birds stopped panting and holding out their wings. We are very grateful to Ameren for their hard work and we are praying for their safety as they work to get everyone's electricity back on. I know it is easy to be cranky in situations like these but don't get mad at Ameren. They ARE trying. And if it weren't for them, well....we now see where we'd be...

Yes, I live in Wood River, Il. in a mobile home park where alot of the trees were damage and lost of power. No major damage to any of the homes except skirting being pull away on some. As of today, July 22, at 11:37 a.m. my power came on but other parts of Wood River has no power.

yes, we were one of the many hit by the storm. we had a tree twisted down by the roots, a patio cover destroyed and lost power for just over 14 hours. thankfully everyone is fine. we are blessed and pray that all of our fellow storm victims get relief soon. we all have much to be thankful for.

Still no rain, but some winds. I guess I was lucky for not getting those hard winds like many others got. But sure wish I could of gotten the rain.
M.C.S.

POLL: Were you affected by the storm? Tell us about it