At the heavy rain that hit São Sebastião and Caraguatatuba last Sunday (24) caused a number of exceptional events affecting the local population and causing major damage to the grid. Winds of over 100 km/h felled over 200 trees and damaged the EDP distribution network.

EDP, which is focused on ensuring fast customer service, worked tirelessly since the storm began to rebuild the electric system and reinstate damaged cabling. The Distributor’s on-site team was supplemented by a workforce ten times bigger the usual. Overall, around 380 employees were on hand, including engineers, electricians and managers. 2 thousand kilometers of cables were replaced and 15 lampposts knocked down by large trees were changed; over one thousand pieces of vegetation overhanging supply lines were trimmed back.

Around 80 thousand customers were affected by power supply outages at the height of the storm. Importantly, the Company’s remote automation equipment was automatically triggered to mitigate the incident and power supplies returned to normal for 80% of affected consumers within the first eight hours.

So many trees, branches and other objects fell on electric cabling that the Company worked alongside the Fire Department, the Civil Defense Force and other municipal organizations to address the situation. The time it took to normalize operations depended on the extent of the damage caused. 

At the Company also increased the number of people available at its Customer Service Center, which received over 35 thousand calls. The Call Center is available 24 hours a day at 0800 721 0123 and customers can also contact the Distributor via the following channels:

- EDP Online at www.edponline.com.br;

- EDP Online App (supported by Android™, iOS and Windows)

EDP appreciates its customers’ support during this atypical incident and would like to thank the municipal organizations involved for their assistance. We would also like to highlight the great work done by Company employees to reinstate normal service for residents along the Northern Coast region.