Spain's Entire National Power Grid Shut Down Today Sending Tens Of Millions Of People Into Darkness Without Any Working Technology

Clive Brunskill. Getty Images.

As is part of my routine during the spring, I wake up early during the week and gamble on European tennis. When I opened my eyes to check the scores all of a sudden every match was interrupted. Usually that means rain, but when I flipped on one of the matches it was sunny as can be outside. Then my mind went to a medical emergency in the stands like someone fainting, but why would every match be delayed? That's when I took to Twitter to see the ENTIRE country of Spain had lost power. 

Turns out all of Spain, as well as major parts of Portugal, and some of France had their power grids cut off. You can actually see the moment it went down as Coco Gauff was being interviewed after her win at the Madrid Open. 

Transportation, cell service, internet, traffic lights, anything that ran on electricity was rendered worthless. 

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You had people getting out of halted trains to walk in the tunnels to escape the darkness. 

All of it so terrifying. Leading up to the election last year I had conspiracy theorist/tiktok obsessed Tommy Smokes telling me that the national grid was going down in November and to be ready, whatever that means. Obviously I didn't take too much from that, but the idea of what a cyber attack targeted at our electrical grid system can do to us is bone-chilling to think of. We're so dumb and reliant on technology that if you simply unplugged the system we'd descend into complete chaos. This kind of stuff makes me think of the cyber attack in Live Free Die Hard. Not a great movie, but gives you a taste of what this could look like. 

The scariest part right now is that no one knows what happened here. They're calling it a "rare atmospheric phenomenon" which is bullshit for "we don't fucking know what the hell is going on."

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Authorities have said they've had to engage in over 170 elevator interventions. All trains have been suspended. Traffic lights aren't working. Cell service is down. Sounds like a blast to be a municipal worker. Imagine being at that tennis tournament to not only hear there's no more matches the rest of the day, but you gotta leave the premises and getting home is going to be one of the worst things you'll ever have to do. Not exactly how you expected to go about your day. I suppose being trapped in an elevator for hours is a worse fate if we're trying to be on the bright side of things. Either way, it's all bad.

Assuming terrorism isn't at play (which is very much still possible), imagine being the guy whose fault this all actually was. Just sitting there waiting the trail to lead itself directly to you. It's gotta be someone's fault, right? 

But seriously, it's such a problem how reliant we are with all this shit and how one bug could send us into an apocalyptic frenzy. It's only a matter of time too! Certainly nothing we can do to prepare ourselves either. Good stuff everyone.