The U.S. Department of Energy issued two emergency orders this week aimed at reducing blackout risks in the Mid-Atlantic. New York City is under a heat emergency.
A sprawling and dangerous heat wave gripping much of the central and eastern United States is raising concerns about power demand and outage risks ahead of the Fourth of July holiday. Tens of thousands of customers are already without electricity, and more storms are threatening to knock out power in parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes.
Outages down from Tuesday night, but risks remain
FILE PHOTO: Inside National Grid Transmission Control Center for Upstate New York on Monday, Nov. 17, 2025, in Liverpool, N.Y. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)
More than 100,000 customers were without power nationwide Wednesday afternoon, down from more than 167,000 outages reported Tuesday night. While that number is not highly unusual for this time of year, AccuWeather meteorologists warn that the combination of extreme heat, surging air conditioning demand and rounds of thunderstorms could quickly push outage totals higher again…