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?

Yes it was over by the time she posted. What difference does that make? She was asking if it was normal for parents to not check in when they knew their child and grandchildren were experiencing a severe adverse event. Her parents didn’t know it was going to be over in 12 hours while it was going on.

I thought you weren’t commenting any more. I say that knowing how hard it is to resist. I’ll believe you about the deliberate irony. Thousands wouldn’t 😉

The point was that they had made no attempt to contact her whereas many others had - she got an influx of messages once the power was restored.

I am surprised not only at the lack of awareness of the news by PPs but the minimisation based on the experience in the 1970’s (half a century ago!) or based on small localised power outages.

Also that many wouldn’t even bother checking in on their family members to see how they are.
Worse still, the comments of why didn’t OP call her parents - massively missing the point. Usually, if you care about someone you would attempt to contact them to see if all is ok even if you cannot do anything to help. Rather than think that there is no point and they will call me eventually. It’s weird self centered behaviour but may explain a lot about family dynamics and the threads I see on here.

I'm in my 70s with children late 40s. If they'd been in Spain/Portugal during the power cut I don't think I'd have contacted them asap afterwards to check they were OK. I'd have mentioned it next time I did though 'Were you affected much....etc etc?', not because I don't love/care about them but because I stopped running round worrying about them when they became fully-fledged adults with their own lives. I can see that it was a huge National worry but, if the power/water etc is out in your village, I can't see it makes much difference to you that it was out all over the country unless you had a flight booked or the like.

But what can one say to OP anyway that she can think of herself?

1. Her parents don't care she went through a long power cut (and as she did not grow up in remote Africa it was a big trauma tho' she did go through early 70s in uk)?
2. Her parents were engaged in some kind of drama/ disaster of their own that distracted them from knowing she was in bad power cut?
3. Her parents are now cognitively impaired suddenly and do not know what's going on in Spain or anywhere else?
4. They also had a local power cut too and had no tv, radio, internet either and have not had the information?

@Lifestooshort71 would you genuinely not be concerned if you found out that what you thought was a local power cut actually impacted not only the whole of your country but a couple of other countries too, and that all infrastructure was impacted and over 50 million people had lost power, internet connection, shops closed, banking facilities not available, flights cancelled, chaos on roads etc

And no explanation for it, and then pretty much news blackout as couldn't access news so no idea when power etc would return

She asked ‘is this normal?’ so I guess she wanted to know, based on other people’s experiences with their family, whether they thought it was normal or not 🤷🏻‍♀️. In our family no, not normal. Even my 11 year old saw it on Newsround and sent her auntie in Spain a message on our family group chat to see if she was ok.

I don't mean to be rude but unless you are a hospital patient or very vulnerable (things like requiring generated life aids/supports etc...) thats literally nothing.

Is there some drip feed that theres also something else going on (like a natural disaster or act of war that wiped out the power and you are in imminent danger).

We lost power for that long a couple of weeks ago due to a line down, it wasn't on the news, its pretty normal. I live up a mountain in the pennines we lose power randomly in the storms every winter.

Even just goggled it theres been a handful of isolated deaths/emergencies from generators and candles being used improperly, nothing out of the ordinary for a power cut though.

I actually said that I couldn't see it would make any difference. Whether I would be worried or not....no idea tbh.

I totally agree. It's depressing how horrible some people are for no reason.

I agree with this. I have some colleagues who were affected and they said it was a bit scary at first as there were rumours it was a cyberattack over several continents (and it was impossible to get any actual information) and it wasn’t clear initially if and when power would return.

I would expect my parents to communicate in some way to acknowledge it. It was headline news here.

There’s a very good chance your parents simply don’t know about it. If they do and didn’t text then that’s poor. Text them and let them know you are ok. Glad you’re ok

@housethatbuiltme so nothing out of the ordinary that 50 million people lost power for no reason

I tend to disagree - if the story has made it away to social media, it means it quite. In fact sometimes you more information from social media that other news outlets.

Loads of people have been rude to the OP and anyone who stuck up for her. There has been an unedifying mixture of denial, minimising and ignorance

People have been loftily declaring that of course the water supply wasn't cut off and that landlines don't need electricity to work and sticking to their guns even when people who live in the affected countries confirmed that their water was cut off and their landlines weren't working. Apparently, this total black out for at least 12 hours with no information about what was happening isn't nearly as bad as the power cuts in the 1970s. I was a teenager when we had those power cuts and we knew when they were happening and how long they would last. We stocked up on candles and we could still use the landline. It was completely different.

Then there have been the predictable insults aimed at the OP, asking if she is a small child and has she always been this needy.

@Lifestooshort71 when we have a localised power cut, normally due to storm, someone dig up a cable. Information shared local FB telling us what, why and estimated time for power to return.
We’ve been lucky and never had one go in more than a few hours, so wouldn’t make the news. Know that we could pop to another town to get supplies, get internet connection, still be able to communicate with people and find out what is happening.

Compare that to situation with power going off and getting a message that the whole country (plus neighbouring countries) have lost power, no public transport, shops shut, no banking facilities available, chaos on the roads, if you are unlucky your water supply stops as well, not knowing why or when everything will return to normal. And then news blackout. I think that is very different to local power cut

It must have been a scary time for you not knowing what was going on or how long it would last for and having no internet so no access to information.
However, I think you are being too hard on your parents (unless there's a lot of backstory where they are generally uncaring and this has been the final straw type of thing).
As you can see from this thread a lot of people who saw the news didn't grasp how serious and widespread it was and a lot of people do have the attitude that they've lived through worse, or they live in an area where power cuts happen fairly regularly so they don't consider them to be a big deal.
That means that even though you expected more from your parents you do have to consider that perhaps the reason they didn't text you wasn't because they don't care but because they really didn't think it was a big deal like many people on here. That does not make them bad people.

I live in another EU country. The government made a massive thing about the threat of blackouts and how bad it was going to be and getting prepared etc. The press whipped this up into a frenzy. Then they started reporting every single larger power cut - power out for an hour or so, newspaper article headlined "Major blackout in ...... " plus some other stuff about ATMs or a train stuck somewhere etc.
The problem with that is that when you are constantly seeing reporting like that you soon get blackout fatigue and certainly in my case, I saw the headline about "Major blackout in Spain" and didn't bother to read the article because I assumed (wrongly) that it was just yet another article about a power cut in the same vein as all the rest.
It wasn't really until today when I saw a facebook post from a friend in Portugal who described what happened that I realized it was a major incident.

Lucky you. One of my relatives is early 70s and has dementia and doesn't know what day it is and cannot measure the passage of time.

It really does seem the easiest and healthiest thing for the OP to do would be to contact them and find out why they haven't been in touch.

Have you read the thread? This was of a different magnitude. Can you not imagine the sort of things that might happen if a whole country lost power - transport systems, water off, no comms, hospitals and schools affected, potential for massive security breaches etc etc. You can see that’s a bit different from an isolated power cut in a rural location?

Im sorry you feel disappointed by them. I don't think it's unreasonable for you to feel upset they didn't check in on you, but I wonder if it would be worthwhile exploring why it has had such an impact.

The point is they didn't have a clue what was going on at the time, so they didn't know the severity. What they DID know was that it wasn't as simple as a line being down due to a storm.

Fingers crossed it all goes haywire in the UK for 12 hours.

Jesus Christ you can all draw diagrams about parking and no toilet paper, soft play and "kids" not at school. Do not forget your money for your "coffees" which you pay for with your ugly watch.

Then a touch or "councilling" and a bit of worry about any ND you feel you may have.

IT WAS A NATIONAL EMERGENCY.

Thanks for completely minimising my 6 day power cut. Frankly I'd like to see you deal with one. I was in an all electric house and the temperature all through the house was about 8 to 9 degrees centigrade for the whole power cut. But that would be no problem for you I take it? Yes minor power cuts are more common here but not 6 day ones!!
You can only mitigate against this up to a point eg I have a back up generator that runs my freezer and some lights but it needs fuel and I live on an island, the ferry couldn't run for days and no fuel could be pumped on island because of the power cut, so generator use had to be seriously rationed
Frankly 12 hours in Spain in May would be a relative doddle!