Spain has endured the biggest blackout in its history, with nearly 18 hours without electricity. It’s astonishing how quickly you can turn into a Third World country when you vote for a socialist. This is how I experienced it.
12:30 p.m.: I ask ChatGPT if my symptoms point to a heart attack. My symptoms? I’m fed up with work, and it’s hot. ChatGPT freezes, thinking. I cancel the query and try again: “If you’re going to tell me I’m dying, just say it straight, no BS.” No response. The network crashes. The power goes out. I recite Psalm 88: “For my soul is full of troubles, / and my life draws near to Sheol.”
12:40 p.m.: I lie on the bed. Better to die on my back. I open Twitter. #Apagón (Blackout) is trending. I look out the window, and chaos has taken over the city. The total blackout hits all of Spain, Portugal, Andorra, and parts of France. My heart attack symptoms return. I close my eyes and dream of lines of masked people leaving the supermarket with pounds of toilet paper. I open my eyes. I have six more heart attacks (by my own diagnostic standards). Hoping the power returns soon, I fall asleep.
2:10 p.m.: I wake up to chanting in the streets. All businesses have had to close. And what does a Spanish worker do in such dire circumstances, when the world seems to be ending? Obviously, hit the bars. The outdoor patios are packed to the brim.
3:30 p.m.: I shower with cold water. Phone and internet are down. All that’s left is the radio: an old battery-powered transistor. In the age of AI, Spain gives thanks for analog devices. Socialism has done it again: Spain is now Venezuela.
3:40 p.m.: On the radio, people start asking what everyone on the street is wondering: What’s happening, and where the hell is Pedro Sánchez’s government? Nobody knows anything.
3:40 p.m.: Rumors start flying. The funniest one catches on fast: Aliens have arrived and decided to attack Spain first. I think of Mars attacks. If they took on the government, I’d put on antennae, paint myself green, and back them without hesitation.
4:15 p.m.: I walk the streets. Every corner is a mess: An elderly woman in a wheelchair has been stuck in a lobby for hours because elevators aren’t working; two cars crashed at an intersection with no traffic lights; and shops are closing because they’re out of change. Friends tell me they’ve lost track of family members traveling by train. No explanations are given. The government’s always there to tax but vanishes like vapor when it’s time to deliver.
4:30 p.m.: Water starts failing in some homes. In pharmacies, refrigerated medications are spoiling. Spaniards eat cold food and canned goods. Ambulances keep racing by. Chaos and lines ensue at gas stations and small neighborhood shops still accepting cash. The initial laughter about the blackout turns to nerves and confusion.
4:45 p.m.: My meal is cheese with cheese and a bag of chips. For dessert, chocolate. I’m officially a 40-year-old single guy in a midlife crisis. No chance of coffee unless you’ve got a portable gas stove. Who the hell has a portable gas stove? Do you have one?
4:50 p.m.: I make a survival list. But I’m a journalist, so I scrap it, hit the streets, and search for a place to buy two packs of cigarettes. The rest can wait. With two packs, if the stars align, I could take Kabul single-handedly in half an hour.
5:00 p.m.: I sit for a beer. Five hours of a total blackout across Spain, and still no official word from the government! I recall a dumb ad from months ago showing firefighters, doctors in a hospital, and transportation infrastructure with the text, “It’s not a miracle, it’s your taxes!” I look at the darkness and ruin around me and think: Indeed, it’s not a miracle, it’s my taxes.
6:00 p.m.: After six hours of chaos, the prime minister finally speaks. He admits he has no clue what’s happening. He adds that, inexplicably, “at 12:35, 15 gigawatts were suddenly lost in just five seconds.” We all instinctively check our pockets in case we accidentally have the 15 gigawatts. Once again, Sánchez is a national security hazard.
7:30 p.m.: Thanks to the radio, we start grasping the scale of the disaster. Power returns to a tiny fraction of the country, with nuclear support from France and a bit from Morocco. It’s the only good thing Morocco has sent us in the last 20 years.
8:00 p.m.: I dine on cheese with cheese and chips. More chocolate. Everything in my freezer is now a melted mess fit only for dogs.
9:30 p.m.: It’s pitch black at home, and outside just a few lonely shadows from flashlights light the streets. There’s a lot of partying on the bar’s terrace. I shower with cold water, dress in the dark, break a nail on a piece of furniture that’s never been there before, and limp to the bar with the radio glued to my ear.
9:45 p.m.: All my neighbors gather in the dark at the bar for a big chat. Most are drunk. Someone said the beer will stay cold for two or three more hours, so everyone’s decided to finish the stock. I find this childish and selfish during a national security crisis, so I sit with them, lecture them from my moral high ground like a progressive, then order two beers and three double whiskeys on the rocks.
10:50 p.m.: The prime minister speaks again. The neighborhood crowds around my radio to listen. He says that he’ll work all night to stay calm, which sends everyone into a panic. He adds not to believe fake news and to follow only official sources. I wonder if those are the same sources that, during the pandemic, made you wear a mask to cross an empty field but let you take it off to eat on a train. Maybe the ones that said COVID came from a Chinese guy eating undercooked pangolin.
11:00 p.m.: I dance La Macarena with the flowerpots in the town square. Everyone assumes there’ll be no power tonight and, instead of going home, starts ordering cocktails. What defines a Spaniard is always focusing on what matters. The rest can wait. Chesterton would’ve been a great Spaniard.
12:20 a.m.: Alarms go off, and there’s fear of looting. I check that none are from my car. While descending some steps to the sidewalk, I trip in the dark, fall, and roll down the street. One neighbor laughs so hard he can’t breathe. Everyone’s focused on him, so no one checks if I’m alive. I return to the bar with scratches and limping from one ear. We try to revive the laughing guy with slaps. He gets mad and starts swinging back. For a second, it’s nearly a brawl. But no one lands a hit because the flashlight’s battery died, and it’s pitch black. It’s like a fight between fentanyl addicts.
12:30 a.m.: A drunk neighbor confesses her love for me. I escape to the bathroom. It’s lit by a scented candle. I’m allergic, sneeze, and the candle goes out. I can’t see a thing. I manage to leave after feeling every inch of the gross walls. Back in the bar, someone points out my zipper’s down, and my “canary” might escape. The neighbor notices, stunned, and comes at me, overcome with passion. Quick on my feet, I grab a lit candle, hand it to her, yell, “Hold this, please!” and sprint to the patio. Self-defense tip: drunk people follow orders well if you don’t give them time to think.
1:10 a.m.: The radio says 80 percent of the country is slowly getting power back. Not my city. I pray it returns because I refuse to climb seven flights of stairs again.
1:40 a.m.: The city is eerie. Silence. Total darkness. No moon — maybe Sánchez stole it too. Fewer police cars pass by. More suspicious shadows speaking foreign languages. I decide to head home. Then, the lights come back on in a flash. The four of us left in the bar are blinded for minutes.
2:05 a.m.: I read nonpartisan experts on social media, and there’s a consensus that ties the disaster to the damn European Green Deal and the government’s idiotic anti-nuclear, pro-renewables stance over the past seven years.
1:00 p.m.: (Tuesday) Sánchez’s pathetic press conference. He accuses the Right of spreading rumors. He claims nuclear energy, far from being the solution, was part of the problem (this fool hides that we got power back thanks to France’s nuclear support). He insists renewables saved the day. To top it off, he deflects his government’s incompetence by threatening private energy operators, blaming them for failures caused by Red Eléctrica, a company whose main shareholder is the government. I said it before, and I’ll say it again: Sánchez is a new far-left dictator in the heart of Europe, a dangerous truth-allergic man who must be ousted from power ASAP.
4:00 p.m.: Portugal doesn’t buy Sánchez’s explanations (I wonder why) and demands an external EU investigation into what happened.
5:00 p.m.: Someone shares a 2023 video. In it, Sánchez, puffed up like a rooster, shouts at a rally: “There won’t be blackouts in Spain, no rationing of gas canisters, nor any of those apocalyptic scenes the far-right predicts.” Brilliant.