tombo today

On April 28th, 2025, there was a complete power cut across Spain and Portugal that lasted most of the day. There was no electricity, no phone service and no internet. Nobody knew what happened or how long it was going to last. This is how I experienced it.

I had a late one the night before, and I wasn’t working that day, so I woke up around midday. I made a coffee and looked at the news. The only headline that caught my attention was this one. Suddenly, the power went out. My building is an old one so the fuses blowing out isn’t a rare occurrence. Normally I open the fuse box, flip them down then back up and the power comes back on. Not so this time. I thought I might as well go ahead and do some chores that don’t need electricity. I dressed up and went down to get a particular type of nail that I need for a project at a hardware store around the block. That’s when I noticed it wasn’t just my building which had lost power, but the whole block/area. Every shop had some people standing outside, not knowing quite what to do. They were also surrounded by piles of trash bags, as garbage men have been on strike across the city for about a week. Quite a sight.