It happened exactly like in the opening of an apocalypse movie. Chaos crept in slowly – then all at once.
I was enduring the gym’s typically obnoxious music when I hopped onto the treadmill. As I was about to press the ‘on’ button, a lady profusely sweating on a mechanical elliptical machine in front of me turned around to explain it wasn’t working – that all the machines were offline. No treadmill? No problem, I thought.
I went upstairs and remembered tomorrow’s tennis game had to be cancelled due to a conflicting appointment in Malaga around the same time. The receptionist smiled and said he’d love to cancel my game, but not until all the power was back on. The club’s emergency generator only sustained a few systems – horrible music included. I questioned their priorities, shrugged, and went home. I hadn’t yet noticed anything strange – not the heavier traffic, nor the numerous police cars whizzing past, sirens blazing.
I still didn’t think anything untoward was going on when my remote control was unable to open the gates – they must be out of battery. Or even when I realised that my home’s power was out (small power cuts aren’t uncommon).
But then my dad came home with his colleagues. “Why didn’t you pick up your grandmother?” he asked. But it was his next words that made my heart sink. “There’s been an attack” he exclaimed. “Electricity’s down in Spain – maybe the world. I’m going to get my mother.”
One of his colleagues indicated she had received texts that power was also down in Japan and Germany, but not Switzerland. I immediately assumed there could have been an attack targeting NATO and associated countries. Shit.
I started running through our house’s preparedness. Rice? 2kg. Potatoes? A few basketfuls. Generator? No. Gun? No. But I did have an old Bhutanese bow & arrow. I made a mental note and kept checking. Water? I ran upstairs. Relieved to see it still worked, I immediately filled the bathtubs.
Then we started checking for other supplies. Batteries, lanterns, anything that could give us an extra edge. I cursed myself for not having walkie-talkie communications established with my friends. Slowly fingering my way through our attic, my childhood’s military-spec Airsoft pistols and rifles glinted in the corner. Worse comes to worse, they could prove useful.
But we still had no idea about the outside world. Eureka! I remember we still had our late grandfather’s radio. I scanned through the radio stations and news started dripping in. But they were going in circles – the radio station may have generators, but their communications were also down: “We have reports all of Spain’s grid is down. We’re getting reports France, Portugal, Andorra, Morocco are also down. We don’t know more than that. Please keep calm and avoid unnecessary journeys, limit your phone calls with emergency services to the strictly necessary.”
And suddenly, relief. I received some Signal and WhatsApp texts, proving this seemed to be an isolated incident in the Iberian Peninsula. My father showed me a viral text: the Spanish intelligence service claimed a Russian cyberattack was responsible for the power outage. A different text claimed it was Morocco.
Then, some basic communications were reestablished by Radio Nacional, the national radio service. But every minute that passed brought with it a different estimation of power recovery. At one point, we received news the Portuguese energy operator claimed power could be out “as much as a week!”. I could almost hear the radio station’s nervous gulp.
Then, five minutes before we were scheduled to get an announcement by our President, I lost the signal. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find it again.
That’s when I remembered: I’m supposed to be a journalist. Grabbing my camera, I sped down to Marbella’s centre to find most avenues shut. Parking the car, I got out to get some intel. Local police calmly directed traffic by hand.
Most businesses were shut, with locals pouring in and out of the large Mercadona that was still running thanks to its generators. All the locals had an expression of calm confusion on their faces. I noticed the strangeness of seeing the occasional bar filled with tourists sipping their drinks.
The barmen were reduced to cash payments only, though the occasional shop still had some battery in their handheld card readers.
After noticing that all the major gas stations in Marbella were shut, I overheard the policeman tell someone “I think there’s one Repsol still open over in La Canada” and jogged back to my car. The radio buzzed into life “We got a bit stressed out there! A power outage shut down our station just as the President was about to give his speech… ha haha ha.”
But arriving at the Repsol, I was waved off by another individual there; its power had just been shut down. “I hear there’s another one outside the centre of Marbella, but the queue is over an hour long.” I grimaced.
There it was – the information asymmetry they always warn you about in movies. Faced with the possibility of running out of fuel, Marbella’s atmosphere took a turn. I noticed at least two vans that dangerously veered into traffic and refused to give way. I spotted one of the drivers, an angry-looking middle-aged man, with a type of hardness in his eyes which I had never seen. Cars sped past me chaotically along the highway.
Just an hour earlier, Marbella had been a calm, if confused, oasis. Now, it was sliding into chaos. I got home and realised I couldn’t find the radio stations I’d been relying on. My heart twisted: was this getting worse? A few minutes after I finally found another working radio signal. Soon afterwards my 5G returned. As Signal texts rushed onto the phone screen, relief washed over me.
Sitting down as I write this message, the strangest part is how quickly it all got back to normal. It’s been an hour since the power came back on. And checking my Instagram, it’s as if nothing happened. None of my Spain-based friends have posted anything about the power outage. They just shared normal reels, life updates, and pretty pictures of the beach. My local WhatsApp friends’ group which, as the power came back, was spammed with frantic messages asking if everyone was ok, are back to planning nights out this weekend.
Just eight hours ago we had a thirty-minute interval where we seriously considered that Western civilisation may have started to collapse. I can ominously recall my thoughts: how I realised with bitterness the fortune we had. How despite all our complaints about modernity, about all the drama and conspiracies, we had it all. But I was also annoyed about the obvious: that I should have known it would collapse. Why didn’t I prepare the basics? What’s worse – why didn’t I have a gun?
Now, eight hours later, I’m back to making consequential choices. Will Friday drinks take place at a beach club or a bar with a mountain view? Decisions, decisions.
