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?

Had a nearly 6 day long one in Kintyre after storm Éowyn in January. It was bloody freezing in the house but hey ho, we Scots just get on with it 😂

It wouldn't have occured to me to text an adult in their 50s who lived in Spain or Portugal just to check on them with what went on unless there was some specific reason they were vulnerable.

As far as I've heard there haven't been any reported casualties or serious worries about safety, and while it was of course on the news we were also getting the big-picture reports which will have had a very different feel than actually being in it I'm sure. We were fairly immediately assured it wasn't suspected to be an attack and within minutes restoration was underway. Talk of needing a week to recover was more about getting the transportation system caught up and lots of behind-the-scenes things average people won't notice. I'd assume most of my loved ones would be inconvenienced but ok to sit tight and wait it out for 12-24 hours and would ask about it during our next routine contact, or I'd expect to hear from them earlier if they wanted to unload about it.

I can understand why it felt different to you but I don't think your family is being uncaring in this particular case.

My cousin was staying alone in a house above Malaga. Spoke to my aunt, she said she thought cousin would be resourceful and fine, no need to panic, and she wasn’t going to call or message her because she didn’t want to use your her battery.

Thank you, you’ve put it much more directly than I did. I thought it was a war too, was telling myself to stop being silly, but Dh (very sensible) did give me a worried look

Why ask if you’re gonna send chewy replies

Strange. I saw loads of news reports about it so I’m not sure what previous posters were watching! Yes I think I would have expected to hear from my parents in that situation. Not necessarily because they were worried but more interested!

Do they even know? I just glanced at the latest news headlines and there was something about Spain and Portugal being blacked out for a while. I wouldn't have known otherwise. Anyway it seems you're OK.

One of my DC live in Spain and I messaged them as soon as I knew about it, which was within an hour of it happening. I didn’t expect a reply to my text but wanted to offer support to my child (who was absolutely fine).

I think people on this thread are in denial about just how serious the power cut was. Millions of people were affected and whole countries had no atms, no trains running, no traffic lights, shops and restaurants shut, no communications available and no flights. Some areas also had no water.

If it happened in Spain and Portugal it could happen anywhere, including the UK.

That’s pretty dramatic and thoughtless when you consider that there are people in Europe who genuinely ARE living through a war.

I’m not in my 50’s

If we have the same thing happen here with most of the country out of action for no discernible reason and the possibility of it being a cyber attack I wonder how many posters will go, it’s only a power cut!

Can’t believe posters also saying it wasn’t on the news, maybe they are so unobservant they wouldn’t notice a power cut, because it was all over the news!

This may be why you and your parents have different reactions to this. Even in the early reporting of the story in the UK the idea of a cyber attacked was downplayed, we also obviously knew it was only affecting Spain and Portugal,not wider Europe. The news was also reporting that they expected to restore power within 6 to 10 hours. I don't know where you got a week from.

The BBC article I read said only 45 flights had been cancelled throughout Spain. That doesn't make it sound like cyber or even war, a conclusion some posters on here seemed quite quick to jump to.

It probably felt than worse living through it.

This happened to me as a student in London. a bomb would explode near my college or on my route and my parents never checked in on me. Everyone else’s parents would phone my phone (ages me - no mobile phones!) to check on their kids.
but never mine.
YANU

one of my brothers was in london on the day of a terrorist campaign and my parents were straight on the phone to me to see if I had heard from him tho.

I was not impressed!!

Yes, DD (16) was terrified.

Nobody could contact anyone.

It was a worse feeling than Covid tbh. People were trapped in lifts. Nobody could ring buzzers.
My friend in the UK sent me a message which I got at 4 am. I denuinely thought it was war!

Chewy? because you’re response was so rude

Amazed at the posters saying they were not even aware this had happened. It was all over the news yesterday. This wasn't 'just a power cut', it was a total blackout across two European countries, anything and everything that used electricity just suddenly stopped working - planes, trains, ATMs, banks, lifts, lights, Internet, TV, traffic lights, refrigeration...

It was a major incident, and they still don't seem to know what caused it.

And yes OP, it seems odd your parents didn't try to check you were OK.

But what was so scary? I think some of us are missing this aspect altogether. I don't think any of us are generally not empathetic people, we've just often not had power, and not found it scary, so it's hard to understand why this would be scary.

How is it thoughtless? Given the state of the world and Putin's shenanigans, a completely unexpected and unprecedented multi-country blackout and communications breakdown is exactly the sort of thing that might happen as part of an attack, cyber or otherwise.

Most people thought it was a cyber attack, for obvious reasons—there's never been anything else like it. My first thought—once I realised it wasn't just a normal power cut in my area—was that it was a Russian shot across the bows.

I would have expected them to do as you did x

Also spoke to a colleague in Spain today who explained how terrifying it was. No news. And then when the government did come on the news 5 hours in - which people went to their cars to tune into - he told them he didn’t know what had happened and no idea when the power would come on.

talk about unsettling.

no phones. No text. No internet. No electric. No lights. People stuck in lifts. Tubes jammed. No traffic lights.
what a nightmare.

Hope you are ok now OP?

They are older so probably don’t realise you will still have power in a blackout.
This is why they don’t message

How have people missed it? I don’t even watch the news anymore but I saw the headlines about and that was enough for me to realise it was a pretty major power cut, not just one affecting a few houses for a few hours.

Sorry your family didn’t get in touch, I’d have been messaging family and friends, even if I knew they wouldn’t get them.

If there was major flooding where you are then weird not to check

otherwise your electricity was off. You ok? Yes… see.. exactly

If Russia is going to fuck us up much more likely to be via cyber attacks rather than missiles (of any form)

Not dramatic at all, have you seen the way the world is? Would a cyber attack or threat of war be really that surprising