I hope that all members have had their electricity restored and that they did not suffer huge difficulties during the outage.

Rosemary

We lost power, along with everyone else, at 12.30 yesterday. The power came back on just before 5pm but from around 7pm until we went to bed we had no mobile phone network or internet access so couldn't get any information about what was going on, that was pretty surreal. Apart from the internet being a bit shaky everything seems back to normal this morning.

The people I feel most sorry for are those who were stuck on trains across the country or had to spend the night on the floor at railway stations. Apart from the transport difficulties particularly in the cities where the Metro systems weren't operating, from the reports I've seen I think the country coped quite well, little disruption to flights and hospitals able to provide critical care thanks to backup generators. Locally our nearest branch of Mercadona stayed open (don't know if they were taking cash only but I assume so) and looked very busy, unusual for the afternoon when it is usually very quiet. Quite a lot of stocking up on things like bottled water and toilet rolls although I wouldn't go so far as to call it panic buying! With no power at home we went out to meet friends at a bar as planned (keep calm and carry on and all that), they were open and serving drinks apart from coffee. 3 fire engines turned up, the bomberos had been called to get a lady in a wheelchair back up to her apartment in the building above the bar.

All OK now here in Benidorm, its been the quietest evening we've had for years 😄. Luckily I've got a power bank device which I could plug a table lamp into and able to keep my mobile charged up.

Steve

Mine was off for about 12 hours. The internet was restored sometime during the night so I did not have any information until this morning. Then of course I started to read the horror stories of how people were stuck and suffering. When I went to see a friend I noticed one bar was taking their chairs inside and closing but do not know whether that was due to the power being off or because that was part of their plan as yesterday was a bank holiday here. Looks like a vast amount of Spain has now regained its power but I do not think at the moment that the whole of Spain and Portugal are back to normal.

Rosemary.

I wonder if the authorities will find out the exact cause of the outage?. REN is reporting "induced atmospheric vibration" caused by extreme thermal gradients. The French are saying problems with damage to ultra high voltage power lines contributed. If it was just strange weather then it might happen more often.

No power issues in the Canaries but we did suffer internet connectivity issues throughout the day and well past midnight.

During the day Movistar held up but the Orange network crashed and was unavailable. Then in the evening Orange was back in full swing but Movistar went completely dark, showing no signal as if their cell towers were knocked out cold. Home internet was also down.

Discovered a small knock on effect at my post office. Small town so post office only open one hour a day and the postie uses the internet link for costing. Today he informed me that he could not tell me how much my letter would cost as he had no link but when his shift here ends he will take it with him and post it in the town that services us and will collect the money from me another day. So although it was a little hiccup the benefit of living in a small town where the postie knows me ended up as a great service.

Rosemary

I always love to hear people recount stories like this (very rare these days) ...... what a great human your postie is !! A simple, meaningful act of kindness

The last time I had something exceptional happen to me regarding postal services was in the Gold Coast. I was in Sydney and on the verge of heading out of Australia but some kind of school photo album was sent to my old address. I cannot remember who called who but I mentioned that I wouldn't be going up north anytime soon since I'm heading overseas and that they should just return it to the sender, but without any extra paperwork/signatures/etc. or even payment (suddenly a local package became an interstate one) they forwarded everything to the Sydney address I provided over the phone.

Apparently power was restored yesterday in the Basque country at 15.30.
Luckily we've been in Devon until tomorrow.
Shocked at high prices in England.

We came away for a 3 day break to San Jose from Sunday. Monday we decided we would drive a little further up the coast to explore the area. Around 12.20 as we arrived at Las Negras my sister rang me from the UK during the call it dropped out and i couldnt get a signal? i couldn't really see my phone screen too well due the bright sunshine so stupidly tried adjusting the brightness and somehow my phone went totally blank! So we went for to a cafe for a coffee to try and sort my phone out. The lady at the cafe said there was no coffee as no electric so cash only I couldnt get my phone working at all so presumed i had somehow bricked it. We returned to the hotel at San Jose presuming power would be on which of course it wasnt . At the hotel i managed to get the phone working but no internet or signal whatsoever. We had no idea the whole of Spain was without power. I did briefly get a signal on the phone around 1.30 pm but it disappeared again. We only found out around 5pm that whole of spain was affected by asking someone in a shop. All the restaurants cafes etc were closed. So before the shop closed we got some crisps crackers and water to get us through the night. We returned to the hotel and were given some candles We had an early night when it got dark. Electric came back on here around 1 or 2 am but no internet. This morning we got tv news to give is full account of the outage. While out for a walk this morning around 11am the internet.and phone signal returned. Pretty much back to normal here now some restaurants remain closed and some ATMs still not working but others are. It just goes to show though how reliant we are these days for electricity and internet. I said this morning we must get a little battery operated old fashioned radio to keep ourselves informed in such emergencies in the future.

You did not have a am/fm radio in the automobile?

Yes i did check that so could get a little bit of information. It may have been where we are being out of the way but the number of channels i could receive was extremely limited. Whether some stations had gone off line without power ? To be honest after yesterdays experience i think in case of anything similar a standard non internet batery radio is a good idea for home and to take on trips away from home rather than sitting in ones car .

Your smartphone also has a battery operated, non-internet reliant FM radio...

Some may have but i am not aware mine does.