BALTIMORE (WJZ)– Eight people have died due to the heat, according to the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

Mike Schuh has more on this now deadly weather.

Survival is certainly not easy with triple-digit temperatures and no relief from the heat.

Medics rush to help Carlton Davis. He and his wife are stuck in their sweltering West Baltimore apartment with no power.

“I had heat stroke. I didn’t know which way was which,” Carlton Davis said.

The couple is trying to get help for themselves and their neighbors.

“We’ve been calling since Day One. We’ve been calling since Day One,” Priscilla Davis said.

Volunteers from the mayor’s office are canvassing powerless neighborhoods with ice and water to help the city’s most vulnerable.

“No citizen should live under these conditions. Unfortunately, we live with what we have and this is what we have to face today,” Housing Authority Deputy Commissioner Reggie Scriber said.

Eight people in Maryland have died from the heat since Saturday– five in Baltimore City alone, two in Montgomery and one in Wicomico counties.

Many more have fallen ill.

“We’ve been seeing a lot of heat-related illness, especially this week,” Dr. Fred Burke, who works in the ER at Sinai Hospital, said.

While BGE has restored service to 94 percent of customers, they’ve still got crews working around the clock.

The BGE call center has received 1.2 million calls since the storm, and the calls keep coming.

“When we get down to the last 50,000 or whatever, they are very, very difficult jobs to work. It’s almost a one-to-one ratio,” says Brian Andrews who runs the call center.

That’s why BGE is holding all out-of-state crews until all power is restored.

As for Carlton Davis…

“I’m going to make the best of it,” he said.

And pray the lights come on soon.

BGE continues to call in more crews of out of state. Two hundred and fifty additional workers arrived on Thursday.

Maryland’s Public Service Commission, which regulates BGE, warns the utility could be fined if their response breaks any regulations.

There are 26,639 BGE customers still without power– 14,657 in Baltimore County, 6,608 in Baltimore City, 2,261 in Anne Arundel County and 1,493 in Howard County. These numbers include the 9,000 people who lost power after the storm on Thursday night. Electricity to hundreds of those homes had just been restored.

Because of the heat wave, Baltimore City is extending pool hours through Saturday. All park pools will stay open from noon until 8 p.m. and walk-to pools will be open from noon until 6 p.m.