April Apocalypse in a Spanish village? 24 hours off-grid (a power cut in Spain)

A dramatic headline for sure, but quite honestly, this shit was just a bit scary at times. What else do you do when you’re wide awake at 2am with the fear? Start to write it all down, it seems.

It kicked off Monday lunchtime. A normal day other than it being one where we also have family visiting us in our wee village here in Almería, Andalucía.

Image credit: Esra Korkmaz for Unsplash

It was 12.30pm and we’d almost finished work (ready to launch another website) and we were heading off for a tapas lunch when the power, and the data with it, went down. The entire village, we assumed.

It’s happened before. No drama.

The beers were still chilled and the grill was working so it was almost business as usual in our local restaurant. I mean, there’s no lights as you head to the toilets but we all have torches on our phones (as long as they have charge). Nothing we can’t handle!

We could even see two guys way up the mast checking things out so assumed all would be well soon enough.

It’s just gone 3pm and our friend comes racing down the hill, slightly panicked, with her wee dog in tow to tell us that the priest has just told her the power is completely out across Spain, Portugal and beyond.

Slightly uncomfortably, we laugh about it (I mean, it couldn’t be true, right?) and joke about the priest putting the fear of God into her*. That and we weren’t sure how he could know as no one had any data or mobile signal whatsoever. It’s not unusual in our part of Spain for all data to down with the electricity.

The next thing we know, the two guys are down from the tower and eating their lunch at the table behind us. A good sign? Nope, as it happens. They just confirmed that their job was done (futile) as it was indeed a country-wide power cut in Spain (at least) - complete outage.

Fast forward to early evening. The village rumour-mill is in full force (although people are really just trying to be helpful) and you can hear one or two crackly analog radios in the odd home in the village. We tried to stop outside a couple of homes to listen in from the street but didn’t get much. Our Spanish isn’t good enough to pick it all up and it was difficult to hear anyway.

Mental note – buy an analog radio when we get out of this.

We then started to worry about people relying on electricity for health reasons** (dialysis, heart conditions etc) and, honestly, it all started to get a little unsettling but we reminded ourselves we had torches, batteries, candles, lighters and plenty of food in the cupboards and in our soon-to-be-defrosted fridge and freezer. We hoped others did too but we knew we’d help where we could.

The shops had reopened as usual at 5pm so we headed up to grab another big bottle of water. Some people we recognised came into the shop, slightly panic-stricken. They’d arrived into the country late morning, grabbed the keys for their house and driven up to the village without a cent between them and no food or drink in their house.

There’s no cash machine – everything is down.

Noone can take electronic payments, of course.

We gave them a fiver (it was all we had) and grabbed them a few bits from the house – chorizo, cheese, some sweet treats, some crackers and a few other very random items. It was a mish mash at best but they were grateful. Very strange times indeed. With hindsight, I could have given them more but we still had limited supply and we now had four people (and our dog) to feed with no clue when or if the electricity would come back on.

I headed back to the house where we cobbled together a cold dinner on our roof terrace. Cold cuts, cheese, pate and a few other things. At this point, we’ve got no clue what will happen to our fridge food. We saved a chook by using a little ice from the freezer to create it’s own little micro-fridge. Wasn’t letting that go to waste. I figured we’d find a way to cook it tomorrow.

As the light was fading on the terrace, we started to wonder what time it was. We rely on the church bells for that. There were no church bells. None. They too, run on electricity/digital. I mean, of course they do but it’s just not something you think about!

An hour later and it’s a complete black out in the village save for a small handful of solar terrace lights dotted about and one or two cars passing at the top of the hill.

We called it a night, tided up as best we could in candlelight and took the dog out for a short walk by torchlight.

The stars look frigging amazing tonight - hello Plough! It’s all starting to feel uneasy though so it was a little tricky to properly enjoy the sky.

Heading back into the house was eerie. It all feels very weird. Can’t imagine what it’s like in the cities right now. No traffic lights, limited stock in supermarkets that may not take cash, no lifts. Nada. Let's be clear though. We're not in a war zone. This isn't the Ukraine or Gaza. It's unprecedented and a bit scary because of the uncertainty but it cannot even begin to compare to the daily horror those people are living. I hope that goes without saying.

So, we head to bed with no idea when it will come back on and no clue what’s really happening. We are just hoping that it’s a cyber attack at worst and nothing more sinister than that (that's pretty damn sinister anyway.)

We can only assume that the rest of the world knows everything at this point. Family in New Zealand and the UK will know that we can’t get hold of them. Feels bloody horrible though.

Trying to read our books by candle light in an effort to distract and relax a little. At least the house smells absolutely gorgeous thanks to the Liberty and Jo Malone candles we were given as leaving gifts in the UK this time last year.

Another mental note. This time it’s to use candles a lot more if we get out of this ok!

Its almost 11pm. Time to sleep. About ten hours of an entire country (apparently) without electricity. Madness.

At least I have my girls with me. My wife, Eppie and our pup, Gracie are here and we’re warm and safe. So damn grateful for that. We also have great friends in this village and we know, rationally, that it’s a good place to be. People here will look out for each other.

We just don’t have a clue what tomorrow will bring.

Overnight brought an hour of anxiety from 2am as we tried to rationalise this and stay calm knowing that we can’t communicate with our families. Then, once we settled a bit again, it was dreams of running away, finding petrol, a woman with a lizard tongue and local cat colonies - amongst us.

Still, we found sleep but I’m not gonna lie – It was unsettling. Before we found that sleep again, I’d written lists of what we could use from the van, what we needed first thing, and what we were going to do to prepare for similar again.

This morning brought a little more calm, as light tends to do. A quick walk around the village feels mostly like business as usual despite most being closed, no cafés and a generator providing minimal power to the local supermarket.

The morning did, as we now all know, also bring the news that most of the rest of Spain was back online – with light, data etc. Not us, of course, but we at least knew we wouldn’t be far behind.

Our visiting family popped over so we could use our wee camp stove and gas bottle to make coffee, tea and a hot breakfast for everyone. I was half way through when it all came back on again.

What did we do? Carried on preparing grub with one change. Music.

The post-apocalyptic album of choice?

Dire Straits’ Brothers In Arms (1st edition) on vinyl.... Walk of Life felt about right.

*As far as we know, the local priest in the catholic church here is a lovely man and wouldn’t dream of putting the fear of God into anyone!

**This is posted shortly after the power coming back on so we don't yet have the full story but are hopeful of minimal impact to those with serious health conditions given that hospitals and parts of Spain got power back more quickly (as we now know.)

It will be interesting to see what comes of it. Cyber attack? Extreme weather (there's nothing extreme here)? Something else? It doesn't change the impact of it, which could be very severe. Hopefully this time, it won't have been.