Since the passage of an extratropical cyclone that caused strong winds and extensive damage throughout São Paulo, more than 417,000 residents of Greater São Paulo continue to face power outages. This is the case, for example, of screenwriter Erica Chaves, resident of Butantã, in the capital of São Paulo. She has been without power since 12pm on Wednesday (10).
Last Thursday (11) she spoke to the Brazil Agency and reported that he was arriving home from the market when he discovered that his house was no light.
“The first thing I faced was the problem of arriving here at home, with grocery shopping and finding it without electricity. Some things we managed to take to a neighbor’s house to put in the freezer, which were foods that have an emotional representation for us, that we brought from a trip and we left in the freezer to eat little by little. We left these at a friend’s house, in her freezer”, he reported. “The rest we are managing here, some things I have already thrown away because I couldn’t do it anymore”.
This Saturday morning (13), she spoke again with the Brazil Agency and reported that his situation has remained unchanged since then. The lack of energy has also made her save on cell phone use, to save internet and not run out of battery.
“My father is in the hospital and thank God there is power in the hospital where he is. But this way, I am saving the internet and going online every hour to save battery and be able to get news about him”, he said. “I notified the family and said: ‘Look, I’m without internet to save more time, but the phone is normal and working. So call me on a regular phone for any emergency.”
In the Bixiga region, in the center of the capital of São Paulo, residents staged a protest last night (12) against a lack of energy.
“We want light”, shouted the residents of the region. This morning, they were still suffering from the problem. “I still have no power and no light,” a resident of the neighborhood told the reporter.
According to her, her entire condominium remains without power and the elderly people who live there are struggling to climb stairs and have difficulty bathing, eating and taking their medications.
In Pompeii, in the west of the capital, a protest was scheduled to take place in the early afternoon today. But the light, a resident reported to the report, ended up returning to the region just over an hour ago.
This Saturday morning, Enel, the company responsible for energy supply in Greater São Paulo, reported that it had “mobilized a record number of teams in the field” since last Wednesday and that it is expected to be able to restore power to all its customers by tomorrow.
“The distributor is working to restore the service and normalize supply to consumers affected by the meteorological event from December 10th and 11th until the end of tomorrow”, says the company’s note.
According to Enel, the power outage was caused by “adverse weather conditions”, which “significantly impacted restoration operations, as continuous gusts caused new interruptions while teams worked to reconnect customers”.
Last night (12), the São Paulo Justice complied with the determination of the SP Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office and ordered Enel to restore electricity within 12 hours. If this does not happen, the concessionaire will be fined R$200,000 per hour. In response, Enel stated that “it was not informed of the decision [da Justiça] and continues to work uninterruptedly to restore energy supply to the rest of the population that was affected by the climate event”.
