Monday April 28th, 2025
As every Monday, I try to get a lot of work out of the way because it just feels good to get stuff done early in the week. My partner was working the morning hours and we just had our lunch together when suddenly all electricity fell out. It was at 12.30 when that happened.
Living in Spain it’s not uncommon for glitches to appear in the grid, we have noticed it a few times more as well as sometimes waking up noticing the glitches in the system thanks to the oven timer being incorrect and blinking.
We didn’t think much of it but it was annoying for sure. A friend told me she thought it was just her street but the whole region was affected, while not long after she told me the whole of Spain had a power outage. Strange to say the least!
Although I could not load any internet page properly, she told me (as she had a radio on battery) to stay inside. I asked why (it crossed my mind that there was a threat or something) but she never answered as then Whatsapp also failed to deliver messages. Although the regular internet pages stopped working long before Whatsapp, at some point messages took forever to get through and by that time some were already without power or internet themselves.
We could only wait.
School
As it happened during school hours, and 30 minutes before the school ended there was still no power, it meant that my boyfriend had to get the stairs twelve floors down and he decided to leave around that time. I told him it wouldn't be the downstairs walk that took long but he should take more time for the way back up lol, I used to live 13 floors high in my childhood and back then the elevators often had issues so I know the struggle all too well.
He ended up waiting for a bit at school and then had to carry her suitcase back up, I said why not leave it in the car in the garage but she insisted it had to come up (easy for her to say, she didn't have to carry it) but dad listened and struggled his way up including suitcase with all school supplies.
Apparently school already sent out messages about afternoon classes being cancelled (the after school activities mostly) but these never got through here, and it was clear to me that in case of doubt about the power the next day she'd stay home anyway.
No electricity and no water
As the pump of the water didn't work during the power outage, we had no water on our floor. We also didn't have a clue if they put out water points to collect tap water somewhere as they normally do when there's a water incident. In this case it would not have been much help because the car was stuck in the garage (we don't have a key to open it manually) and the closest water point is pretty uphill, add to that 24 staircases, not really optional unless absolutely needed.
Since the first water incident (where our municipality failed to inform the people even 12 hours later) I have been filling up 5L bottles of water with tap water to be able to do dishes and at least flush the toilet as our gasstove still works when there's a power outage, which is a big plus.
After the third incident my boyfriend got tired of all these bottles that were in the way and then I only had 5 left and left it that way, it was tight but we managed with what we had. We had about 20 liters of bottled water at that time so I was hoping this wasn't going to last for days.
Testing our new garden relax chairs
Recently we bought 2 relax chairs with the intention to use them at the pool this summer and we only had them inside unused until the day of the outage. But as we had nothing to do while the weather was absolutely lovely, we put them on the balcony and made sure our skin had some vitamin d intake for a few hours. We enjoyed our stunning view and we could not ignore the kitesurfers on the water a little further.
Some of them had been on the water since before the outage and probably had no clue about the chaos that was happening nationwide. Meanwhile the usual sounds of tennisballs hitting the rackets also continued throughout the whole day, as we have two tennis courts around us. People in this street surely didn't seem to be too bothered at least during the day.
I didn't mind it too much during the day, the thing that bothered me mostly was the fact that I didn't have updates, so on my to buy list is a radio on battery or wind up system so that if this happens again I can listen to updates. I had the feeling that our region would not be priority in terms of getting the power back though, later it turned out that I was right and that this is usual the case when something happens, the people living here are used to it according to my friend.
Final messages
My boyfriend's phone had some messages coming through long after mine already stopped working and the latest news was at 4 PM when a colleague said it would take 6 to 10 more hours before everything would be solved (I didn't think this was going to be true though) but the earliest we would be back on the grid in the evening.
We gathered all our candles, flashlight and some LED lights to put them all in one spot, easy to find later when the sun would set. Even my daughter's two lights from her dollhouse were added and they turned out to be very useful to walk through the darkness when having to go to the toilet. I was surprised by how handy they were.
Dishes
As it was still light I decided to sacrifice a bottle of water to boil it and do at least part of the dishes and then didn't finish the rest because I learned that we had only 2 bottles and a bit left after flushing the toilet a few times. We also needed some water to brush our teeth later so I hoped I could do the rest when having the water back.
It was also then when I decided that after this outage, I'd fill up more bottles again and just put some on the balcony in the corner where we don't walk or sit anyway, a win in summer as the water will be heated up by the sun rather than needing gas for it, lol. But that was all for later, at this moment we still had to sit it out not knowing how long it would take.
Guardia civil
We noticed a helicopter that kept returning probably to check if all was calm, above the boulevard. We didn't hear any weird riots or anything though, all seemed calm. There were a few incidents where we heard some ambulances but nothing shocking thankfully. The people seemed to be ok mostly in our area.
I realized that we could have been stuck in one of the elevators and was grateful this wasn't the case. Later I learned that 3000 people had been stuck in these and I remember that this happened to me as a child and it can get a bit scary, especially if it's in the dark!
Cooled items
We tried to not open the fridge too many times and later we only took out the few ice creams we had left in the freezer to make sure they would not melt and make a mess if all would get defrosted. I never thought about checking the temperature although we have this thing to measure it, haha.
I only took out some soft buns by the time we got hungry as I was worried they'd be ruined the next day, so we ate a few of these with cheese and didn't touch any other food. I regretted that I didn't use the air fryer in time to prep some veggies as planned, but now I was too late, haha.
Honestly I felt annoyed by the fact that I just bought a variety of food and placed it in the fridge two days earlier because I wanted to plan the groceries more ahead and could only hope that the meat was not going to be ruined.
Reading a book!
When the evening fell, the cats started to get a bit restless and kept looking outside as they surely noticed things looked different compared to the normal view. We put the candles on the table but before it turned dark, I decided that this was a great moment to read in one of my two books that I planned on reading at the pool this summer. One of them I found for free at some closet where you can leave your books for others to read.
I didn't realize how much I missed reading and how much I enjoyed the writing style of this Dutch author who always makes me laugh. I think I had about 1,5 hours left to read and then we really had to light everything we had.
We gave our daughter the dollhouse light as it's tiny and light to carry and gave lots of light, I did the same while my boyfriend used his headlight instead. We took in the darkness that was falling slowly and realized how much lights there normally are and how weird it looks now without them. We talked some more and then headed to bed around 10 PM because we might as well try to sleep instead of waiting for the power to get back on.
Battery drained
By the time I went to bed, my phone was around 25% and although I had a power bank to charge it once, I was a bit afraid that it would not make it until the power went back on. Either way, I went to sleep and only woke up a few times because of an alarm that kept going off outside, it started aroud 9pm that evening and kept going continuously all through the morning.
Brief signal
I woke up at 7 AM, or at least I thought it was that early because my phone magically added Cassablanca time next to Madrid time the previous evening. Later I learned that's probably because Marocco lend us a helping hand with their signal (or something like that) so that explained my phone alarms going off for the second time exactly one hour later.
In the morning none of our devices showed the same time, it was really weird but I noticed a brief page loading on the internet when I tried, it made me hopefull that they were close to a solution in our area. I went back to sleep for another hour and then my daughter went inside and shouted the internet is working again!
What she meant was the router went on and lights were burning again, the internet didn't work properly for at least several more hours. Only 4G worked a bit here and there but not continiously. By the time this happened it was 7.30 AM while we were without power and water from 12.30 PM the previous day. In total we were cut off 19 hours while I read some regions only were cut off for a few hours max.
No water
Although I was hopeful the water would run again quickly, this took some time, but just before we heard the elevator working a few times, we heard the water tanks of the toilets fill up. I didn't hesitate and immediately filled a 5 liter bottle with water, I was not trusting things to go down smooth, haha. Halfway through the bottle the pressure was gone and that was it, water stopped working again.
We decided to get dressed, the internet didn't work properly yet so my boyfriend couldn't work yet, it needed some time. As we were using our last gas bottle, we thought it was smart to get a new bottle before they were sold out everywhere and in case something similar would happen as well as take money from the ATM while also loading up on bottled water.
The first supermarket didn't have bottled water, only very expensive ones, I wasn't really sure if they did this on purpose or that it truly was sold out but we decided to drive to the bigger supermarket and there we found 20 big bottles to load the car as well as a new bottle of gas. Our usual address where we buy it didn't have any left, so I was thankful that we could find one somewhere else. People were definitely loading up on stuff now that they could.
Supermarket 1 was close to empty
It seemed they didn't have a generator or something beause most of the cooled isles were empty as well as the fresh department with vegetables and meat. Supermarket 2 didn't have this issue and was actually loaded up quite nicely. We filled our car with Diesel and then drove home.
When the water went back on, I filled up all bottles we had left, I think 15 of them, as I wasn't taking any chances. I was happy that I trust my gut feeling once again because it only worked for a brief moment after we were done filling them up and then apparently water in the whole area was cut off. For us this meant day 2 without normal running water, just our luck.
No school
Andalusia decided to open schools but no classes were held and as we were doing some rounds of damage control in case things went south again, we kept our daughter home that day so we didn't have to leave her anywhere or pick her up etc. I rather had her with us to see how things would go that day. The schools went back to normal today and everything seems back to normal.
Toilet and kitchen tap broke!
When our water came back on late in the evening, something (we think maybe the pressure difference) broke not only one of the toilets, as it didn't stop flushing and the tap wouldn't close either, but in the kitchen there was no water at all. So this was day 3 that I had to carry bottles of water, heat it up in a pan or get it in another room (at least now it worked in the other rooms) to do dishes etc.
Thankfully it's a holiday on Thursday so our landlady and partner will come tomorrow to see what's broken and fix it on Saturday when they return.
Eye opener
This whole experience has been a bit of an eye opener how easily they can control a whole country, once again. While this blog has already turned into a book, I will leave my other thoughts for a second part because I bet nobody made it till this end anyway, lol.
If you live in Spain, or experienced this issue in Portugal or France, let me know in the comments how you experienced it all..
All pictures above are mine, some of shitty quality but hey, it was a national power outage so forgive me for not being that sharp :)