Brazil emerged early Wednesday from a widespread power outage that plunged its major cities and at least nine states into darkness for hours, prompting security fears and concern from residents about another black eye for a country hosting the 2016 Olympic Games.

Brazilian authorities blamed storms that took down power lines and towers, causing a domino effect that rippled across the region.

In Rio, Governor Sergio Cabral sent an elite police unit into the streets early Wednesday to help maintain calm in a city known for its crime. The mayor dispatched 300 extra unarmed civil guards to help control traffic.

The city saw a spike in robberies around the Maracana football stadium – where the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2016 Olympics will be held, along with the 2014 World Cup final. A police spokesman said bands of roughly a dozen criminals worked the area together, robbing people en masse – a crime phenomenon so routine it is known as a “big sweep.”

“The image of Brazil, of Rio, is bad enough with all the violence,” said 35-year-old graphic designer Paulo Viera, as he sat in a restaurant a block from the sandy arc of Copacabana.

Standing in an open-air restaurant where patrons were drinking quickly warming beer, he said he worried about how the outage might look for a city that last month was picked to host the 2016 Olympics and will be the showcase city for soccer’s World Cup in 2014. “We don’t need this to happen. I don’t know how it could get worse.”

The blackout comes on the heels of a wave of gang fighting in Rio’s favelas that led to violence fears for the Olympics.

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