São Paulo Daily Pulse for Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Three things to know

• More than 44,000 addresses were still without power this morning after Monday’s storms.
• A flood death update turned a technical “weather story” into a human warning.
• Dengue is rising early, with the first confirmed death in the state this year.

São Paulo runs on reliability. That is why blackouts hit harder than they sound. When the grid fails, elevators stall. Card payments stop. Hotels and restaurants switch to backup plans.

The day’s most useful number was 44,540. That is how many properties were still without electricity Tuesday morning. Outages had topped 100,000 across the service area on Monday.

The state had already moved into a coordination posture. Civil Defense activated a “crisis cabinet” to speed decisions and deploy crews across municipalities. It is less a headline than a signal. Officials expect scattered incidents to stack up fast.

The clearest example came from the flood tragedy in the south zone. Firefighters found the body of Maria Deusdete da Mata Ribeiro, 67, on Monday in the Jurubatuba and Pinheiros river system near Interlagos.

Her husband, Marcos da Mata Ribeiro, 68, was found on Saturday. Reports said the couple’s vehicle was swept away on Friday, and the car had not been located.

Power reliability is also becoming a governance issue, not just a utility issue. Federal authorities have opened a formal review of the utility’s response to major outages.

A report is expected within 30 days. The company says it invested more than R$10 billion, about $1.85 billion, since 2018. It also cites R$10.4 billion, about $1.93 billion, planned for 2025–2027.

Dengue adds the slow-burn risk. The state confirmed its first dengue death of 2026. The victim was a 53-year-old man from Nova Guataporanga. Symptoms began on January 3.

São Paulo has reported 4,360 probable cases so far this year. Brazil has reported more than 11,000 probable cases.

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