Santiago, August 3, 2024.- This morning, the company conducted a helicopter flight over the most affected areas to inspect the progress of supply replacement and work on the power grid, which was heavily damaged by recent weather. In addition to all the infrastructure that has already been replaced and repaired, the flight revealed that there are still more than 300 downed poles in the concession area, located in various sectors of the 33 municipalities of the Metropolitan Region.
"The overflight, along with allowing us to monitor the replacement work in the most affected communities, helped us to quantify more precisely the great damage caused, mainly by the trees that fell on the network, knocking down, for example, up to 40 poles in a single section of our medium voltage lines. In fact, we recorded more than 300 poles destroyed within the communes of our concession area", indicated Víctor Tavera, general manager of Enel Distribución.
According to records from the Meteorological Directorate of Chile, the wind reached gusts of up to 124 km/hour early Thursday morning, adding to the 55 mm of accumulated water. This caused the fall of more than 2,000 trees and large branches, damage to electrical infrastructure, including cutting lines, breaking poles, and extensive work to fix the faults.
Technical teams were reinforced eight times more than on a typical day, reaching more than 200 on-site working crews. Starting tomorrow, specialized teams from the Enel Group's operations in Brazil, Colombia, and Argentina will also support them.