Utility officials said there was plenty of electricity to go around. But water was a rising concern in the region as the heat combined with persistent drought, water main breaks and flagging conservation efforts to tax supplies.
Baltimore public works crews patched at least 10 heat-related water main breaks yesterday and shut down 36 illegally opened hydrants. A program that once provided hydrant sprinklers for overheated inner-city neighborhoods has been suspended to conserve water.
“Where rainfall has not been adequate, you have to make sure water is available for basic needs, for fighting fires, for adequate supplies to high-rises and hospitals,” said Kurt L. Kocher, a spokesman for the Department of Public Works.
Thermometers reached 97 degrees at Baltimore-Washington International Airport before clouds rolled in by midafternoon and eased the misery. The high at the Inner Harbor was 99 degrees at 2:23 p.m.
Heat advisories, warning residents to avoid outdoor activities, were posted yesterday from Washington County to the Eastern Shore.
Hospitals reported a handful of heat-related illnesses, including a construction worker treated for heat exhaustion at North Arundel Hospital in Glen Burnie and a man taken to Anne Arundel Medical Center with dehydration.
Despite the heat, air quality improved yesterday as steady breezes blew away the polluted air that had settled over most of Maryland since Sunday.
Ground-level ozone, the main ingredient in smog, briefly reached “code orange” readings near Aberdeen. Code orange ozone levels are unhealthy for children, the elderly and people with respiratory problems.
University of Maryland meteorologists said the air will stay relatively clean until Sunday, but more unhealthy, ozone-laden air is expected next week.
Today’s weather forecast called for a less scorching high near 90 degrees at BWI, with a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Marylanders will get a break the rest of the week, with highs near normal, in the 80s.
The heat wave has not broken any daily records, which range between 97 and 105 degrees at this time of year.
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But hit-and-miss rainfall remains a problem. The airport has seen just one month of above-normal rains since September. BWI is short more than a half-inch of rain so far this month and more than 12 inches since September.
Recent thunderstorms, however, have apparently led many Marylanders to conclude that the drought is over.
City water customers consumed 309 million gallons Tuesday – about normal for this time of year, Kocher said. In the spring, water consumption had fallen by 6 percent or 7 percent in response to conservation pleas from DPW Chief George L. Winfield.
“Conservation is definitely down, and that’s something we definitely have to bring back up,” Kocher said.
Baltimore’s 1.8 million water customers in the city and surrounding counties continue to draw nearly half their water – 140 million gallons per day – from the Susquehanna River. Without it, the city’s three reservoirs would be far drier than they are: 62 percent of capacity.
“The need for conservation hasn’t gone away, and periodic thunderstorms that can hit or miss the reservoirs should not lure people into a false sense that this [drought] is over,” Kocher said. “If it’s necessary to go to mandatory [water restrictions], we will go to mandatory.”
Beyond the city’s water system, Central Maryland remains in a drought emergency; curbs on water consumption have been mandatory since April.
In Carroll County, Manchester’s wells are so burdened that town officials have tripled fines to $100 for violators of its ban.
In South Carroll, increased demand for water during the hot spell is taxing the area’s only treatment plant. If it continues, officials said, they will enact a far stricter ban than the state announced in April.
The state’s mandatory curbs include bans on lawn watering, washing of paved surfaces and sprinkler irrigation for gardens or outdoor plants.
In Baltimore yesterday, city water crews continued to lock down hydrants to prevent them from being opened illegally. “We’re putting on maybe 15 [locks] a day,” Kocher said.
So far, more than 2,000 of the city’s 10,000 hydrants have been locked under a 5-year-old program, Kocher said. The city intends to lock them all, though fire fighters can still open them quickly in an emergency.
The drought is being blamed for the suspension of the city’s hydrant sprinkler program, but “alternatives are being reviewed,” Kocher said.
Anne Arundel County officials are imposing mandatory water restrictions tomorrow in the northeastern county because of a water-main break under the Patapsco River in April.
There’s no shortage yet in the supply of electricity to power laboring fans and air conditioners.
Rose Kendig, a spokeswoman for the Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. said consumption has been rising all week, topping 6,300 megawatts Tuesday.
“As each day goes by, people start to turn on their air-conditioning units,” Kendig said. “You get to the point where it’s just too hot, and you can’t hold out.”
The demand was still well below the 6,750 megawatts that Kendig said the utility is prepared to supply this summer.
“We’re in very good shape for the summer load,” she said.
Staff writers Laura Barnhardt, Jackie Powder, Lynn Anderson, Mary Gail Hare, Larry Carson and Heather Dewar contributed to this article.
<!– ART CREDITDAVID HOBBY : SUN STAFF
ART CREDIT–> <!– CUTLINE TEXTConstruction workers eat lunch in the shade near the $80 million Carroll County General Hospital expansion project. Shawn Bair (left) of Hanover, Pa.; Aaron Hoff of Taneytown; and Kevin Hough of Walkersville all work for Stambaugh's Inc. of Union Bridge.
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