Diary of the blackout in Portugal. April 2025

Chronicles of 49 hours and 50 minutes of spontaneity, apagão-lypse and quick decisions

April 27th:

20:29 A guy named Raphael sends us an emergency request through a hospitality exchange platform. He missed the last bus, was stranded in our town and was looking for a kind soul to host him for a night. We checked his profile page and it was alarmingly empty.
20:30-20:47 We try to overcome a wave of suspicion and doubt, remembering all the horror stories about inviting complete strangers into your home (just like Swedes and Norwegians before they decide to pick up a hitchhiker).
20:48 We send him a WhatsApp message to ask for his whereabouts.
21:26 Raphael answers and we talk on the phone. He doesn't sound like a serial killer or even like someone who wants to steal our TV.
21:33 We send him our location.
21:56 We open the door to a smiling guy with long hair and a medium sized backpack. He's so laid back, chilled and relaxed that we immediately feel ashamed of our worries. Raphael is bilingual Spanish-German and speaks perfect English. He says he was already looking for an abandoned building to spend the night when we called him. Oh dear, he would have to compete with the gypsies and would probably lose!
22:05 I have to call it a day because I need to work early the next day. We quickly set up a couch in the living room. Our guest is well equipped with a sleeping bag and a towel.

April 28th:

7:00 I plug in my work laptop just after sunrise.
9:28 We all enjoy a hearty Israeli breakfast with tahini, avocado, eggs, cheese and other goodies. Raphael tells us that he got a BA in computer science in Berlin, but then decided to turn his career around 180 degrees and enroll in a circus school in Valencia. He also moved in with his 97-year-old grandmother to keep her company.
10:35 After all the chatting and a brief photo shoot we finally let Raphael go as he wants to catch a bus to Sines.
11:25 We get a message from Raphael that the bus was full, but he managed to buy a ticket for the next one.
11:33 During my call with a client, the power goes out. I quickly switch to a mobile hotspot so as not to lose the connection.
11:45 Messages start coming in from all corners of the country with the same line: no electricity. This is starting to look more serious than an occasional local power outage. I disconnect from the hotspot to save battery and turn off my work laptop.
12:13 We fill all the bottles, pots and other available containers with water. Obviously, without electricity, tap water is also going to be cut at some point. No word from the government.
13:14 Neighbors spread rumors about a Europe-wide blackout (apagão in Portuguese) that will take at least 72 hours to resolve. We rush to the nearest shop to buy matches and a lighter. There, an elderly lady asks for gasoline to use in her antique lamp. Luckily we have a gas stove, a full bottle of gas, and enough food for a month. We also check out a big supermarket, but it's already closed. People are lining up outside smaller stores to buy water with cash. Still no message from Civil Protection on our mobiles. (Interestingly, in Japan we received mobile alerts even for minor earthquakes while using non-Japanese SIM cards.)
14:37 Mobile internet no longer works. We can finally get some use out of FM MODE that our Bluetooth speaker always loudly announces in Chinese-tinted English before letting us switch to BLUETOOTH MODE. Amusingly, the only station with a strong enough signal is the Catholic Radio of Portugal (we later figure out how to get all the stations by plugging in a power cable to serve as an antenna). They are broadcasting a special emergency program, so at least we get some official information, but it's all rather vague. The only thing that is certain is that no one knows why it happened, but they are trying to restore normality as soon as possible.
18:39 The water is off.
23:03 Power and water are back. There's still no internet or cell phone service.

April 29th:

7:00 Phone service returns to one of our two operators, but I can't start working because the other one, our primary, still has no internet connection.
7:20 I get a call from my boss who is worried if I'm still alive, which reminds me that my smartphone can actually be somewhat usable without the internet.
11:20 We go to the farmers market and connect to the public Wi-Fi. Raphael sent us a message that he couldn't make it to his destination the day before, but he's hiking and wild camping along the coast of Rota Vicentina. The best place to be in the middle of this chaos! It turns out that our internet provider is the only one that still hasn't been able to restore the network, and there's no estimate on when it might actually happen.
12:30 We return home and turn on the radio—our only source of information.
16:50 I watch A Heart of a Dog by Laurie Anderson. A poignant reflection on love, death and empathy—a perfect movie in this time of calamity. Max continues re-reading Antifragile by Nassim Taleb on his old Kindle, also somewhat symbolically.
22:19 The internet is finally back.