Spain France Portugal power outage

[Beachwaves127]

Looks bad! I haven’t seen much on hospitals / emergency services but I’ve more seen comments on travel - roads trains planes. Hope they can fix it and wonder what caused it.

Just checked the news and saw this. Very worrying that it has hit such a widespread area.

That must shut down most things that don't have backup emergency power sources. And even when they do, it can't last forever either.

First thought in my head was sabotage of nuclear plants. But I tend to overthink a bit.

Very strange...

My daughter lives in Barcelona and she just text to say this. She said traffic lights, metro etc are all out. Very strange

Oh I see so maybe hospitals are still functioning at the moment on back up generators

it is very very odd

I can't see anything about France?

ETA: Sorry, I have now.

Blimey. Flew home from Madrid last night - feeling very fortunate currently.

Heathrow had similar (not on the same scale obv) recently. Hmmm.

Reports coming in that the Madrid metro is being evacuated. No more info so not sure if it's for health and safety, or something else going on. Probably the former.

It's all so strange. The BBC is being very guarded, as you would expect, but has reported that the Portuguese power website has gone down "for maintenance" [BBC's punctuation marks].

Sky reporting that the Spanish grid operator says 6-10 hours to restore power.

Oh wow really. I assume in full. Hopefully they can get bits up and running earlier

It didnt specify but yes I'd assume that referred to all power. i guess they will priortise emergency services and transport wherever they can.

We are in Italy, and we get power outages maybe every three months. It's usually the weather, as few of the lines are underground. This seems very different though. I can't imagine what can down multiple countries for ten hours. Definitely not giving up on my solid fuel stove for an electric one any time soon.

It's very strange. The whole of two countries. Do they share a grid/ infrastructure? I can't work out how this could be electrical/ mechanical. Latest updates seem to suggest that they don't really know what's causing it yet.

Yes I was wondering what common infrastructure they must share.

It must be frustrating if you dont have cash - although that presumes tills can be used.

Also a reason to have a hybrid car I suppose. Must add I know nothing about cars and electric car charging though so that might be irrelevant!

I don't think cash is much use in a situation like this (except maybe a few small local shops). Most supermarkets are in darkness and checkouts won't be working.

Yes I understand that larger supermarkets would be closed. I was thinking about the impact on water (water pumps) and whether you'd be able to purchase some if you needed. But I would imagine even small shops have tills that run on electricity.
I guess this is where preppers can shine!

Supermarkets should have a back up system- when I worked in one, we had a number of the old hand powered card readers with the multiple copies. The cashier and customer would look at the shopping, agree on a price, and take a copy of the card.

To a certain extent it worked on trust.

That doesn't allow for shopping in the dark, or chilled and frozen foods perishing.

I've read it's a cyber attack.

And now I'm thinking about it the Heathrow thing was really odd, National Grid came out and said Heathrow always had power.

Issues for the shops is keeping food cold, frozen.

Just spoke to one of my colleagues in Spain and she said they are working off a back up generator but people at home have no internet etc .

Putin?

Rare atmospheric phenomenon' behind outage, Portuguese operator says
Whatever that means

I think National Grid's implication was that Heathrow made the wrong call and didn't need to completely shut down, rather than sinister motives though.