Power Outages Hit Ribeirão Preto Businesses and Hospitals as City Seeks Private ICU Beds

A severe storm with winds reaching 120 km/h left approximately 80,000 people without electricity in the interior of São Paulo on July 26, 2026. The weather event caused widespread commercial closures and forced hospitals in Ribeirão Preto to reduce services, prompting the municipal government to seek available intensive care unit (ICU) beds within the private healthcare network, according to reports from G1.

The storm’s impact centered on the Ribeirão Preto region, where high wind speeds damaged power infrastructure and disrupted essential services. Local businesses were unable to operate due to the lack of energy, while healthcare facilities struggled to maintain full capacity amid the outages, G1 reported.

To manage the crisis in the healthcare sector, the Ribeirão Preto city government began coordinating with private clinics and hospitals to identify vacant ICU spots. This measure was taken as public hospitals faced operational constraints following the power failures, according to the same source.

The 120 km/h winds contributed to the scale of the blackout, affecting tens of thousands of households and commercial establishments across the interior of the state. Utility crews were deployed to restore power to the 80,000 affected residents, though the extent of the structural damage to the grid remained a primary obstacle to full restoration, G1 noted.