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?

What's shocking about countries not being prepared for events that are extremely unlikely because they are in a different part of the world or unpredictable?

Are you one of those people who can't comprehend that the UK isn't equipped with the level of machinery needed to cope with the amount of snow the snowiest place in Canada gets?

@FlakyCritic

"Yeah, and? INFRASTRUCTURE have backup generators! What are you not getting about that?"

Whilst you could, to a very limited extent, propel a train using a generator, you can't run a rail network's signals and safety systems on generators. Likewise you can't run air traffic control on generators. You can't actually run a bank on generators either, other than maintaining its lighting and heating because without the internet none of their computer systems would work including ATMs. It's also worth noting that petrol/deisel was unobtainable because of computer failures and generators need that to function. I think you are strangely failing to grasp that almost the whole of 21st century life is dependent on the internet. Are you quite elderly? However, if you know of a way to run the internet on generators then I predict you will be a multi billionaire. Good luck!

Hence why I said it sounds like it was an undeveloped place.

I mean I’m no expert but could the whole of the national grid be restored with back up generators? I doubt it.

anyway flakeynutter it happened, it was a big event and it was scary.

Off to repeatedly hit my head against a generator….

But one would think a capital city would have contingencies and generators? That's my point in a nutshell.

Sigh. I give up. People on here are just being rude and nasty because I cannot understand how these built up places don't have backup generators.

Bye. Hiding thread now.

We’re not talking about a capital city, we’re talking about two enormous countries.

I don't think you can be a new junkie - it was near the top story for a few hours and in the news for about 24. It's still in the news.
I get mine mainly from the radio.

Actually it's the underdeveloped countries where you often see people having own generators and water supplies because infrastructure is... Underdeveloped... From my humble experience.

Edit to just add that that is also case for extreme weather places.

It’s rude to assume posters on here who experienced it, millions of people in the countries affected, all media and governments are making something up because you don’t understand it.

Christ on a bike. I officially donate my place in the human race to anyone who wants it. My brain is broken.

Another bloody bonkers thread.

It was a major incident, of course you are not unreasonable to think they may have got in touch.

It would be normal just to want to find out what it was like for you.

We were cut off by Storm Arwen for days but we knew exactly why we were off grid. This was a very different scenario and I'll guarantee all the posters keen to patronise you would not be so matter of fact if it were the entirety of the UK without power for an unknown reason..

Despite everyone explaining it to you and capital cities being run by people with brains you still think you're right and the rest of the world is wrong

How nice to be so ultra intelligent

Hopefully, my WFH job will be back and rnning next week.
I can teach 7 year olds as challenged as flakeybullshit. They are 7 though.

Sounds like you're in a pretty primitive and undeveloped place if you have blackouts so often that everyone has backup generators.

Have you contacted your parents yet OP?

At this point, if they really do watch the news all the time and you think them not getting in touch is not normal, I'd be contacting them as I'd be worried something had happened to them.

I think either they haven't been watching the news as something else has been going on for them (not necessarily anything to worry about) or they've seen news which has been entirely non dramatic - much of the coverage really indicated it was not a problem and known quite early on it was not a cyberattack and agencies working hard to get everything back to normal. There were plenty of articles of the 'friends have beers by candlelight' nature which really did not give the impression of something to be concerned about. Given you obviously feel it was quite scary OP, why not contact them and let them know how you feel and what happened to you?

Incidentally, when I was younger I used to have more contact with my parents in this sort of situation and lean on them more for help. Given how elderly they are now, and less capable, I probably wouldn't tell them something like this until afterwards and also downplay it as they can get anxious and there's not a lot they can do (both elderly and infirm).

What do you want from them OP? What do you think they can do to help in this situation? If you just want them to get in touch more often, I'd recommend just asking them to do that.

My 20yo daughter is in Spain and I text her to check in (and waited 7-8 hours for a reply as no phone service). MIL also text me to check I’d heard from her. It’s odd they haven’t thought but depends what their contact with you normally looks like, how old you are etc I think?

‘Bog standard mundane black out’.

Im interested in how many times your whole has entirely lost power for 12 hours with no one knowing the cause, if it’s so ‘mundane’?

Would they get through if everything was down? Presume affected internet too. It looked a bit scary I thought having watched TV series about this actually happening.

Haven't read much of the thread, but wanted to tell OP that I think it's normal to have expected your own parents to have shown some concern.

I checked in with my close friends in Spain once they had power back.

Call it primitive and undeveloped all you like, but which place has the backups and the resilience to cope when things go wrong? No back up in place, and a population who cant hardly function without internet for 12 hours isn't great either. Not sure why some seem proud of their inability to manage without running water for half a day. We're fucked if there's ever an actual war or natural disaster...

I really don't understand the response of some of these comments. Of course it would be upsetting that your parents haven't reached out to check on you, it was a massive event. Even if they waited until it was fixed and just sent a message saying I see the electric is back, hope your food stayed cold or something silly you'd probably not have even cared but I'm sure it's upsetting that they didn't think to check on you.
The only thing I'd say is don't look at other people's relationships and compare. Do they normally contact you? For some reason I see more and more parents expecting the contact to come from the children and then complain when they don't hear anything. Maybe they just assumed they'd hear from you rather than not caring.

I hope you are ok now.

Agree! London siezes if a snowflake falls. The ignorance this thread is astonishing. Embarrasingly so. I cringe for so many.

Mind you, i shouldn't be surprised, too much shit goes down in this world because people get their 'news' from TikTok, or 'don't do the news, cos it's too stressfull', or just believe everything they see in the Daily Fucking Mail

I was in London in 7/7. the whole city stopped, there were no cellphones, all blocked, there were however radio/TV, power and infrastructure. the place was chaos.

Imagine this AND no traffic systems/transport/payment/comms...No idea of what was going on, no way of knowing how long it would be, no systems, no help, no 999 services. NOTHING. back to the dark ages in an instant.

What happened in Spain/Portugal/France etc must have been terrifying because of the sudden nature of it, the uncertainty of it all and no information as to what had caused it and what could be done to fix it. No banks to gt money, no card systems, no shops Who the hell carries cash anymore? So many shops don't even take cash.

My friend was in M&S the other week while the Cyber attack was going on, their whole organisation was crippled, extend that to the whole nation, and your neighbours and then maybe get a grip on the severity of the situation.

If someone were to Google 'How it feels to be gaslit' this thread would illustrate it perfectly.

My son and his partner live in Madrid and I WhatsApped them last night to see if they were OK.

Talking of M & S I had a fake email purporting to be from them. Watch out!