More than 24 hours after the start of the power blackout in Spain, Portugal and several areas of France, our country is gradually returning to normal. However, the first hours were chaotic due to the absence of light, the difficulty to communicate with other people (critical moments in mobile telephony and fiber optics) and the problem in transport: traffic jams on roads, delays in airplanes, subway closures and, above all, problems in Cercanías, Rodalies and Renfe trains. In fact, a few medium distance trains were trapped on different tracks.
The unprecedented situation at national level took all citizens by surprise. And as usual in unprecedented contexts, social networks were filled with reactions and videos in which those present in Spain told their experiences on such a peculiar day. Madrid, as a cosmopolitan city, has residents of many nationalities, including around 10,000 Americans, according to data from the Ministry of Labor and Social Economy.
Precisely the foreigners living in the capital are very active in networks such as TikTok, since the videos explaining their life outside the borders of their respective countries of origin generate a large number of reproductions. One of the profiles with the most followers (71,600) is that of Emily(@mamainmadrid), an American mother who lives with her family in Madrid. The young woman has told in three different videos how she experienced the blackout.
“When something goes wrong in Spain, everyone comes together.”
“I am an American living in Madrid and we are currently experiencing a nationwide power outage, not only in Spain, but also in certain parts of Portugal. I was working out at the gym when the lights went out,” Emily explains. At first she thought it was a “normal” power outage, but her phone stopped working and neighbors alerted her that it wasn’t just in her area.
After picking up her children from school, she realized the need for certain items useful in emergency situations:“We don’t have a radio or any emergency equipment for this. Something I will acquire after I finish everything. I will be more prepared when I have an emergency kit. We have candles, lighters, but no solar charger. We’ll get busy after we go out for all of this.”
24 hours later, in a video recently posted to her profile, Emily stresses that she and her family were “not prepared for an emergency.” “As soon as the power came back on yesterday, I bought a large number of things on Amazon in case this happens again in the future (…). What I like the most this morning is that the stores have not been robbed, no glass was broken, there were no robberies or acts of violence. Spain is different,” he said.
He also emphasizes that the images that can be seen in the media today are of people reading in parks, sitting on terraces, drinking beers, listening to and playing music with their friends and children in the street, ice cream shops “giving ice cream to everyone”…. “You know what I say, Spain? Olé! The best thing about living in this country is the people who live here. When something goes wrong, everyone pulls together,” he concludes.