Power shortages were reported in California, Missouri and New York, with the mercury hitting an unprecedented 48 degrees C (119 degrees F) over the weekend in Woodland Hills, part of the sprawling Los Angeles metropolitan region.

"This is clearly a historic weather pattern that we have not seen in 57 years," said Joe Desmond, undersecretary of energy affairs at the California Resources Agency.

"Voluntary conservation is making the key difference right now," he said after two days of power outages that stretched up the Pacific Coast, from Los Angeles in the south to San Francisco to the north and into California's Central Valley.

The heat knocked out the Los Angeles-based servers for the hugely popular personal web page host MySpace for several hours Monday after an area power outage and a backup generator failed, the company said.

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