Severe storms in western Santa Catarina leave over 200,000 homes without power, forcing Celesc to redeploy operational teams from the coast for emergency repairs.
A passage of an extremely violent cold front across the state of Santa Catarina caused a temporary collapse in the electrical infrastructure, hitting the municipalities of the West and Midwest most intensely.
The severe weather instability caused widespread damage, leaving more than 200,000 consumer units without electricity at the height of the storm.
Faced with a calamity in the regional power grid, the board of Celesc ordered the immediate activation of the contingency protocol.
The response strategy mobilized hundreds of field professionals in a task force to reverse the damage caused by strong winds and lightning strikes that battered inland Santa Catarina.
Team relocation and repair complexity
To meet the urgent demand, the utility redirected operational crews working on the beaches and reassigned commercial technicians to the hardest-hit areas.
By the end of that Wednesday, the joint effort had reduced the number of homes in the dark to about 122,000 customers, although the technical challenge remained monumental in the bases of Chapecó, São Miguel do Oeste and Concórdia.
Restoring the system required far more than simple reconnection maneuvers, as the wind toppled giant trees onto transmission lines and destroyed dozens of poles and transformers.
The heavy field engineering work had to focus on physically rebuilding entire sections of the distribution network.
Rebuilding the power grid demands heavy structural interventions, from replacing large components to realigning cables in the areas most battered by the gale-force winds.
Crisis management and next steps
The command center set up in the state capital began monitoring every move in the electric sector in real time, maintaining direct contact with city halls and state civil defense agencies.
The company’s priority is to ensure the safety of the public while carrying out the heavy reconstruction work on damaged networks.
The distributor expects to restore service to the vast majority of affected homes by the end of Thursday.
However, field work in the most remote rural areas will continue over the weekend, requiring residents to be patient as teams complete the final adjustments on medium- and low-voltage lines.