The passage of the Yakecan cyclone through Rio Grande do Sul, between the night of Tuesday (17) and dawn of Wednesday (18), ended with a death and material damage in a smaller dimension than expected by the authorities.
On Monday (16), a 51-year-old man died in a small boat traveling on Lake GuaÃba, in Porto Alegre. In TramandaÃ, on the north coast, the Tramandaà Hospital was partially roofed around 10 pm on Tuesday, but there were no injuries.
The Civil Defense of RS also recorded deroofing in Três Cachoeiras, also on the coast.
The greatest damage occurred in the electrical power distribution structure due to branches and other objects thrown by the gusts of wind against the wiring. Approximately 226,000 people from Rio Grande do Sul woke up without energy, adding up the customers of the two concessionaires that serve RS.
According to CEEE (Companhia Estadual de Energia Elétrica), 182 thousand customers were without electricity, including the metropolitan region of Porto Alegre. In the coverage area of ​​RGE (Rio Grande Energia), 44 thousand customers were affected.
This Wednesday morning, at least two municipalities on the coast of Rio Grande do Sul were completely without electricity: Mostarda and Tavares, which together have 18,330 inhabitants. In addition to the cyclone, the region has been facing continuous heavy rain for more than 13 hours, which makes it difficult to restore service. The region also faces problems with the internet signal.
According to the energy concessionaires, the repair teams were reinforced, but the agility will depend on the weather conditions.
According to Inmet (National Institute of Meteorology), the gusts of wind will lose intensity this Wednesday in RS, but the alerts are maintained for the coasts of Santa Catarina and Paraná.
The forecast is that the rain will continue strong this Wednesday in RS, but that it will improve from Thursday (19). The regions most affected by the passage of the Yakecan will have little thermal amplitude, between 10°C and 15°C. In the Serra Gaúcha, the cold should be more intense in the coming days, with minimums around 5°C and there is still a chance of snow until the end of the week.
In Porto Alegre, Mayor Sebastião Melo (MDB) assessed that the storm’s impacts were “less drastic than projected” and announced that classes in the municipal education network and partner schools will resume this Wednesday afternoon. The social protection network received 568 people in hostels, churches and the municipal gymnasium Tesourinha to spend the night.
Schools and universities in at least 32 municipalities in Rio Grande do Sul had suspended face-to-face activities, most of them until noon on Wednesday.
Although local meteorology institutes have announced the possibility of wind gusts of up to 160 km/h, the Inmet records were in line with the forecast by the national Civil Defense, on Monday (16), with gusts between 60 km/h and 100 km/h.
According to Inmet, the city that faced the strongest gusts was São José dos Ausentes, at 95.7 km/h. Pelotas, in the southern region, and Vacaria, in the fields above the mountains, had gusts of 87.1 km/h and 83.1 km/h, respectively.
