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?

Depending on the age of your parents they have probably lived through power cuts in this country - it is not a threat to life and limb - I would probably text my child and he would probably reply - yeah fine it was only a power cut not an earthquake. You do seem to be reacting quite dramatically for something quite minor.

It's not minor when a whole country is blacked out. It could even be a cyber attack.

Minor incidents don’t warrant a national state of emergency, so can’t have been that minor!

You do seem to be reacting quite dramatically for something quite minor

Better tell that to the people who declared it a national state of emergency. So dramatic!

If one gets news from tiktok one is probably not best placed to judge the "bigness" of news stories

There were actual and electronic acres of coverage everywhere esle

Yes.....darn that Spain Interior Ministry and their dramatics.

It takes a mere snowflake for the shelves to be stripped bare of toilet roll in this country.

You know that the government declared a state of emergency? It wasn’t minor!

Did you not read the news headlines, if not the actual content? Two entire countries came to a complete stop. People died.

This thread is actually making me despair now.

What's happened to people?

I think they were always this dim, they just have more of a platform to share their dimness now.

FFS. Cordless phones, for a start, need power to work, so they won't work in any power cut.

Corded phones on old analog copper networks will work in a localised power cut...but only in circumstances where the phone company has power.

In a massive nationwide outage you need to have three things, a corded phone, an analog system, and the phone company to have a back up generator or massive battery power.

So the vast majority of people will have no phone service.

It's disturbing though isn't it? Seeing it laid bare like this?

It really is.

Yes, they called a state of emergency - because they did not know the cause - however the power was restored 'relatively' quickly .

It really is. The insistent "it's not big news because I didn't know about it" and "it's not a big deal because I don't understand it" is just beyond depressing.
The sheer arrogance of their ignorance is astonishing.

It absolutely is a threat to life shd limb. What about the potential for security breaches, crime, accidents (rail / air / road)… I could go on. The ramifications of a total loss of power could be catastrophic. So the government had to act quickly before these things happened - because they had no idea if the cause, they had no idea of a timescale for power returning.

Surely it doesn’t take that much imagination to be able to see what the consequences of this could be. Very quickly.

Maybe a national state of emergency needs to be called for the dimness of some people!

This thread really exemplifies why it's a very bad idea to risk holding referenda on matters of importance!

Just spoke to SIL who lives in Spain. She said it was really unsettling now knowing what was going on and having no way of finding out. They live in a flat with a young baby so were also panicking about how to boil water to sterilise bottles and to make up formula. They couldn’t get in touch with BIL’s mum who is vulnerable, so that was worrying for them too. They got power back after 12 hours but no internet until the following morning.

Yes, my friend said it triggered the feelings we had during the uncertainty of the pandemic.

So what's your point?
That people concerned about the state of emergency need to go back in time and not be concerned because it didn't last for long?

I keep coming back because I can’t believe some of these replies.

People thinking it wasn’t big news because they’ve only just found out about it on tiktok now?! 😂 The internet was down across multiple countries, so people wouldn’t have been posting about it on tiktok at the time. Meanwhile the BBC website had live coverage all day. It was the main news story, you couldn’t miss it if you checked the website or watched the news that day. I was checking it regularly, as we have family who were affected.

Also the people who were in those countries claiming it wasn’t a big deal because they were at home with candles and generators etc! What about the thousands who weren’t so lucky to be at home when it happened?

Take even one small part of what happened: traffic lights not working. If they stopped working across just one major city in the UK for a day it would be seen as a major thing!

When power goes off in our little area for a short time people are posting on the local page (using mobile phones) asking if others are affected! These people had no internet at all, and many weren’t able to find out what was going on!

Oh @treesandsun the irony of you flouncing because people “starting with the insults” when you start your post by calling someone a rude twat! Off you trot!

I don't think the stupidity posts were even particularly aimed at you!

It wasn't irony - it was deliberate. I am not flouncing - just can't be arsed to keep trying to explain when people are reluctant to consider other comments. I understand it was a state of emergency - and all the reasons why.
But by the time the OP posted about her parents - it was over