I was in blackout and parents haven’t even texted me

[Stopeatingcrispsanddips]

I live in one of the countries where there was a power cut, it was frightening at the time and still feels a bit unsettling. My parents haven’t even WhatsApped us to see how we are (they still live in the U.K.)

Is this normal?

@LankylegsFromOz I assume you noticed the weather event

Intelectually challenged? Nice

Don't be so ridiculous. There will be people on MN who have lived through earthquakes, cyclones, tornados etc. without resorting to dramatics.

Or perhaps we're the ones who've lived through a lot worse. I know I have, my parents have. Goodness me, all this drama from OP over not receiving a bloody text. How ridiculous.

There really is no point trying to explain to some people

And your parents might be those people? The type who literally can't see the gigantic difference between a power cut following a storm vs what happened yesterday.

There was actually a thread yesterday saying "we need to think about cyber attacks" and a few of us pointed out that hopefully that kind of thinking started at at least 20 years ago. Periodically here we get posters saying "oh I think this might be the new warfare". Again, many many years late to this thought!

I can absolutely see why yesterday was very scary. However, I think you probably didn't hear from your parents because they just haven't thought of it in a logical way and simply took the view that it was a power cut.

Logic generally seems to be out the window these days!

We have just lived through terrible floods. This was NOT that.

I get that it was daunting for you OP especially being out of the blue maybe give your parents a ring to discuss with them.

The longest power cut up here was 6 days in Winter it took 4-5 days for the Scottish govt to do anything they eventually sent supplies after a outcry etc. The rest was all on communities and the power company setting up rest stations for hot food, running generators for rest shelters (which were in short supply) etc.

We now have power banks, stock bottled water over winter etc and very thankful we got a wood burner installed when we renovated. At least a day without power is anticipated from mid Oct to mid March when the bad storms tend to be.

I was completely unaware of this until I saw this thread and googled and I listen to the radio on and off throughout the day. It was not reported widely here and the reports I've now seen have not been worrying in any way - reported as a widespread roughly 12 hour power cut, with the knock on effects of travel disruption still continuing to a limited extent (many airlines saying they no longer have any cancelled flights). There were a couple of personal stories - one group of friends enjoying beers by candlelight and a couple of tourists stuck on a train, but did eventually manage to make their flight back to Canada.

We had a power cut for about 27 hours this winter, I'm quite close with my Dad so kept him informed but he didn't particularly contact me (in fact avoided it so as not to run my mobile battery down). It can be very unpleasant having to live through it but unless there was a particular reason to think a power cut could be harmful to OP, such as a need for medical equipment needing electricity, I don't really think her parents not rushing to get in touch is particularly weird. Obviously if she's contacted them telling them there's some kind of unsafe situation, that's different.

@NattyTurtle59 I’m not so sure the dramatics from people who were asked to wear a mask during lockdown, or stick a swab up their nose, I’m sure they wouldn’t be stoic if the whole country went into blackout for 12 hours

So your an adult and need a parent to message you because of a blackout hmm you don't Wana live where we do happens every week and hey being adults you get on with it I don't expect my mum or dad to message

People in the UK aren't the ones living through natural disasters however.

@4kids3pets over 50 million people have a power cut for 12 hours every week, where do you live?

Power cuts aside, surely the answer here is just to contact your parents?

If you're upset they haven't contacted you maybe talk to them about it? Who knows, maybe something dramatic has happened at their end and they were entirely unaware of the news over the past few days. What's the point of speculating about their behaviour when you could just ask them?

Some areas near me had no power for two weeks following a storm a couple of years ago. Twelve hours is nothing. Keep the door shut on the freezer and it won’t even have defrosted.

Me to no idea why I’d missed it too

Black outs happen a lot where I am. It's no big deal. Just have torches (flashlights), candles and plenty of non-perishable food and drink. Who cares? I don't understand the fuss. If you need your parents checking on you for something as mundane as a black out, that's sad.

Pfft. 12 hours is stuff all. It can go 2 to 3 days here in storm season. Kindly get a grip.

And following on from that, if they've not been in touch and are normally news junkies and are in their 70s, are you not concerned OP that something might have happened to them? My parents are a similar age and have had a number of emergency situations (e.g. falls) in recent years as they've got more frail.

The news over here really has not been alarming at all about the power cuts in Europe. Maybe news outlets are massively playing things down, though why they'd do that I don't know.

What???!!! You're a "child of the '70's" ??!!! So, even if you mean you were born in 1979 you are 46 years old and you're whining that your, what, octogenarian parents didn't worry enough about you?? Good grief.

Petrol stations closed immediately, shops, restaurants. We had no access to internet, all lines went down

Yeah, so?

It's not like people didn't have advance warning. Sometimes when black outs happen, there is no warning.

car radios didn’t work

I call bullshit on that, unless your car is an electric one.

And most radio stations and some places like service stations, restaurants, pubs etc have back up generators. It really, really is no big deal. You're making a huge fuss over a measly 12 hours.

I'm on the other side of the world to you and even the news hear said there would be planned rolling black outs there. It's not like you didn't have warning.

the banks stopped, peoples cards stopped working, if you didn’t have any cash in the house it was a panic.

Yeah, so? That's standard for a black out. Which is why with the advanced warnings you had time to get that sorted.

I thought it was a war too

Chryst!

If you have regular black outs you know what to expect and should be prepared. Every single thing you've said is standard for black outs.

@FlakyCritic what advance warning?

I lived through the power cuts of the 70s, ate my tea by candlelight bla bla bla - but had I been in an affected country when this Spain/ Portugal outage happened my one surviving parent - my Dad who is 90 - would definitely have texted/ sent some sort of message asking if I was okay and just generally showing an interest, and I'd have done the same if a friend or family member had been there when it happened. Its just the decent thing to do.

Localised power cuts don't make the national news in other countries so suggesting this was "just a little power cut" is quite misleading. I heard about it in Australia.

Yes and no one had internet for hours

That tends to happen in a black out. Respectfully you sound like some one who has never ever experienced a black out ever before.

most radio was down

Since radio stations have back up generators (due to radio stations being a point of emergency communication) I doubt that very much. Even if you had a small transistor radio you could have listened into your local radio station with that.