Record-setting heat is suspected in 22 deaths from the Deep South to the Midwest to the East Coast, authorities said, with the temperature highs also suppressing some Fourth of July celebrations.

Nearly 156 million people in the eastern two-thirds of the nation were under heat alerts issued by the National Weather Service on Saturday. A high-pressure dome of heat parked over the country was pushing air downward, heating it as it descends and resulting in temperatures of more than 100 degrees in some places, including the District of Columbia; Norfolk, Virginia; and Raleigh, North Carolina.

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In Washington, D.C., which was hosting Salute to America 250 festivities at the National Mall celebrating a Fourth of July that marks 250 years of independence, emergency workers and members of the National Guard were seen rendering aid to attendees with heat-related ailments.

A man yelled,  Emergency! Coming through!  as he helped clear the crowds for a woman on a stretcher.

General seating was under a beating sun, and the temperature of chairs was measured at 160 degrees. Pallets of bottled water were seen stocked in the sunlight.

A joint information center spokesperson at the National Mall said the number of heat-related patients there would be released later.

Festivities were also delayed after the Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency urged attendees to seek shelter immediately due to a severe thunderstorm that was moving overhead. Festivalgoers rushed to white tents for shelter.

The thunderstorms are part of a clash of warm and cooler air that is producing the unsettled cells from parts of Missouri to Pennsylvania.

More than 72 million were under severe thunderstorm watches on Saturday, according to federal forecasters, with the unsettled cells capable of producing winds 65 mph and greater, as well as quarter-sized hail. Damaging wind gusts were reported across Nebraska and Iowa.

A diagonal collection of states from Arkansas to Michigan to New York was the location of power outages for more than 9

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