Meanwhile, about 322,000 customers across 12 states and the District of Columbia suffered Saturday in the heat without the benefits of electricity, including power for their air conditioning and for refrigeration to keep their food edible, according to a CNN count Saturday evening.

Because utilities typically define each residential and business account as a customer, the actual number of people affected was not clear.

Many of these people have gone without power for a full week, thanks to strong storms fueled by the heat that barreled east from Indiana to New Jersey. Others have watched more recent but similar storms leave them in the dark.

The hardest-hit state continues to be West Virginia, where about 116,000 customers had no power Saturday.

Residents have been stocking up on ice to try to save food from spoiling in their useless refrigerators to the point that stores have sold out of it, CNN affiliate WSAZ reported.

Roger Harrah said he traveled from county to county, some 60 miles, searching for ice Friday and finally found a store with some.

"I thought I better get some while I can," Harrah said. "I tell you what, it is rough living without ice."

The extreme heat has also damaged roads.

Wisconsin received about 30 reports of roads buckling Thursday, according to transportation officials. Earlier this week, a viral video showed an SUV airborne after hitting a patch of buckled Wisconsin highway. Missouri has also warned drivers to be on the look-out for pavement buckling from heat.

And since June 23, scores of cities have been the hottest they've ever been, on any day ever recorded. That includes 107 in Colorado Springs, 109 in Nashville and 106 in Atlanta. In Washington, the thermometer has gone past 95 degrees for nine straight days -- the longest such streak since modern record-keeping began.