El Gran Apagon

El Gran Apagon is how the Spanish named the great blackout. I was in Seville that day, behind the wheel of a car on an 8-lane avenue, to be precise.
12:30: the traffic lights stopped working, causing all the vehicles to slow down. Traffic began to regulate itself organically. It was slightly chaotic, yet surprisingly calm. My GPS offered no help, and I had no phone signal. Fortunately, I was near a neighbourhood I knew well, so I parked the car. The electronic lock on the building door was dead – I needed a physical key. Of course, the lift was out of service. On the fourth floor, there was no water either, since the pump wasn’t powered. The elderly couple on the eighth floor, however, remembered a tap located under the basement stairs. They began filling buckets there and carrying them up to meet their temporary needs.

At the foot of the building, the supermarket closed just minutes after the general outage. It was impossible for them to collect payments and the shop was plunged into darkness.

After an hour, while most people still assumed the power outage was limited to their own neighbourhood or city, rumours began to spread through the streets: “All of Spain, all of Portugal is hit; and even parts of Italy and France!” It dawned on me that, if this were true, it would be a serious disaster. You can’t just reconnect an entire country – or several – in a matter of hours. How long would the phone battery last? Not that it mattered much – signals were barely coming through anyway.

Out on the street, owners of old cars turned on their radios, eagerly tuning in for any news. No one really knew what was happening.

What stood out, though, was the calm. People began helping each other without hesitation. Bars and restaurants stayed open, doing their best business of the month – cash only, of course. “If it’s the end of the world, we might as well make the most of it,” seemed to be the mood that prevailed. But there was also immense trust in the system. It was going to start up again, it was just a question of time.

Of course, there were far more stressful and chaotic situations than this – on high-speed trains, motorways, and the like. But all in all, for an eight-hour nationwide shut-down, both the public and the institutions showed a remarkable ability to adapt.

However, once the power began to return – gradually and impressively, with lights flickering back on street by street – TV and social media quickly jumped in, offering theories and searching for someone to blame. And of course, the scapegoat was quickly found: renewable energy – and the potential saviour, nuclear power, obviously. Since then, the blame game has continued to circulate. I won’t dive into the technical arguments and explanations here – there’s plenty of that in the press.

What I retain from this experience is that I’m far more stressed about a potential energy collapse than the average person. More importantly, it highlights the extent of our dependencies and how much more prepared we still need to be. Seeking practical advice from older generations (the example of the water in the basement) and having a basic understanding of our needs and available techniques should be integrated into every school curriculum. Today, preparing the public for extreme events has become a top priority for the Commission. This real-world experience, shared by two countries, offers valuable lessons on the matter. In particular, it’s crucial to find ways to foster balanced debate and ensure the media behaves responsibly during crises.

At the same time, I’ve noticed that the more we get to know each other and interact within our neighbourhoods, the more we cooperate daily. The stronger the community’s sense of interdependence, the more confident we become in our collective ability to handle crises. Ultimately, there’s no need to stress so much!