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?

Sounds like they didn't know about it or realise the impact of it?

Sounds like they hadn’t heard of the blackout

Yes, but the poster kept going on about “the whole country” which is based on land mass. Also, Europe has an international grid, so much more able to draw power from rest of EU if needed. Fixing a power blackout when you have millions more square miles of power infrastructure to check and potentially repair is much harder.

True, but we had them all seasons of the year. Not just in winter

I told her all about it and asked her, did she not see it on the news? She said no as she doesn’t watch the news much (dad def does!) then asked if it was all better now…really odd!

It sounds like they don't actually listen to the news as frequently as you believe they do.

You have an expectation of them that they knew nothing about so no wonder they haven’t met it. We live in an area with power cuts in the Winter but I’ve no expectation that people will be messaging me to check on me. It’s a power cut for a few hours.

I was very busy yesterday and only saw one article on it, looked again today and nothing, if someone had a very busy day yesterday they could have missed it

@LoremIpsumCici I think people view 'whole country' differently depending on where you live. When you live in a vast but not largely populated country you probably do see it as land mass rather than population, in the same way your definition of a long drive and the definition of a long drive to someone in Hampshire for example, would be very different.

The infrastructure and density of population will be impacted differently depending on the country. If you are rural in a sparsely populated county you will be much more prepared for power outages, impact on food supples, heating, travel than you would be in a heavily populated urbanisation.

Agreed on viewing “whole country” as land vs people.
You don’t get prepared for blackouts just by living in a rural, sparsely populated country. It’s a conscious effort to either have been taught it by parents growing up as a child or self-educating if you’ve moved to the area/country.

Also, it does happen densely populated cities too. I have family in California - LA and San Fran and they have dealt with long power outages numerous times. Blackouts, brownouts, etc. it is also easier to be prepared in an urban environment as public transport still runs and you are in closer driving distance of a petrol station to fill up a Jerry can if you have a back up generator.

That might be because it happened late on Monday morning.

If you were born in the 70's you must be in your 50's or close to?

@LoremIpsumCici but in this power outage a lot of public transport stopped (couldn't pay tickets!), petrol stations closed, trains and underground couldn't run.

While it must have been a massive deal going through it, coverage that I’ve seen from the UK has treated this as a minor deal. When I first heard I wondered about cyber attacks etc but when reading the news, it was giving the impression that it wasn’t anything to worry about since nobody was hurt and they know why and it’s not an act of terrorism or war. I guess that they wanted to calm the inevitable conspiracy theorists online.

If you’d been my dd I would have text you but it sounds like your parents live in their own bubble and don’t really think about people outside it. You’ll know if it’s a selfish or clueless thing but your mu2 weekly text to check in suggests that it’s more happily clueless than anything.

This is a long shot but do your parents live in an area of the UK where power cuts are common after winter storms ? I’ve read about areas that have cuts lasting days.

Fair enough, many things are all digital now so I suppose no cash accepted for tickets, petrol stations having no backup power for the pumps. Lost skills and lack of preparation all round.

It was affected because there was no electricity and pumps are needed to move the water around. Many people here had no water. Please don't make statements like that when you clearly have no understanding of how things work here.

It happened on Monday morning.

Also what type of news does your dad read and watch? I’ve seen much more about Trump wearing a navy suit at the Pope’s funeral than the power cuts.

It was the headline story on BBC news all day on Monday.

If you are in your own home to an extent you will be prepared anyway. Food in the house etc. home comforts, things to keep you occupied. we had the packet of crisps in the mini bar. The hotel stopped serving anything. And it only did breakfasts anyway and the outage happened at lunchtime. We managed to buy a couple of litres of bottled water. Fortunately we had quite a bit of cash. Because the ATMS stopped working. Small shops quickly closed. The metro wasn’t working. As you don’t know how long it’s going to last you obviously think about how you may not be able to get home as planned At least one of our party needs medication. She had more than enough for the trip but there was a massive unknown as to how long it would go on for. We didn’t know what had caused it. So we couldn’t just sit back and relax thinking oh well it will be on again in x number of hours.

Well this must make you feel better - it wasn't that they didn't care, it was that they didn't know?

Not a relative doddle if you’ve got half a million people on public transport in Madrid. Or if emergency services had no comms and looting breaks out. Or you live on the 15th floor with no lifts, no water, no power. Or if the government’s or bank’s security systems were breached. Or air traffic control went down and there’s planes in the sky. Or if nobody can buy anything, or refuel their cars or work vehicles because they have no cash and all The shops are closed anyway. Or any one of the potentially life threatening scenarios I can imagine and surely you can too.

Obviously having no power for 6 days must’ve been horrendous for you. But imagine that replicated across two countries with no discernible cause and I think you’ll realise your analogy was rather flawed.

In Spain they were apparently “racing against the sun” to get it fixed before it went dark and they just made it. I believe one woman in Madrid did die of a fire in her apartment caused by a candle. Clearly there would have been many accidents once it went dark just with people tripping and falling down stairs etc.

It's very strange it wiped out 2 countries and part of France

Could it be that they’ve been preoccupied with something? A friend of theirs having a serious health diagnosis? Or maybe your parents have had some other worry?

It may have been under-reported and discussed in UK. Considering the replies on here, lots of people don’t seem to realise how serious and stressful it was. I haven’t seen any news items to see how they’ve presented it, but I can imagine the enormity of it. If it’s been reported as ‘power cuts’ people don’t realise it’s a total shut down and you can’t find out what’s going on.