As ever - thanks for sharing your thoughts and I enjoyed reading. I agree that life can “turn on a pin” and the fragility of that can be really frightening. We must live for today for tomorrow we may be gone.
I was awaiting news from my Portuguese correspondent/the Portuguese jury - that's you! - as soon as the outage hit. And you delivered. The lack of phone signal would certainly be a shock, and little access to news. The scaremongering seems unnecessary for some, and yet I read today of at least 4 fatalities due to health machinery failing at home. I think we need a bigger plan and to focus on need at a time of crisis. Glad you are back on-line as it where 😊
1. Unfortunately the 4 casualties were in Spain, where some people decided that making a fire with candles was a good idea - and "modern" people lacking knowledge about "old times", they forgot that they had to have an outlet for smoke and gases to escape. (Remember: carbon monoxide has no smell.)
2. All PT hospitals have generators and worked as normally as possible, prioritizing urgent aid and life support - and there were births in medium light. And when the generators ran out of fuel, the firemen refilled them. In PT there were no casualties as a direct consequence of the "apagão".
Thank you for sharing that update, Marta - absolutely tragic to hear of those poor people in Spain. My personal experience of the day was predominantly one of just not knowing quite how to respond because there was such a lack of clarity about the level of severity (causes/consequences) of what was going on. Would normal life resume soon or had something much more serious and impactful happened? And it really threw into relief how ill-prepared most of us are to deal with a national emergency without clear information/guidance from the authorities.
Ah, that’s so sad but just what I said to Ade. You worry about all those whose lives rely on medical equipment or quick access to medical services - with the phone lines down for so long, and no comms at all from the authorities bar radio (which we don’t have), we wondered how you’d even call an ambulance? And of course a lot of older people live in small, more remote villages. Definitely raised awareness of a few relatively simple things we might all do to be prepared for any kind of disruption at this level.
I wondered why, though, Portugal doesn’t seem to have the emergency messaging to phones that the UK recently introduced? Even that would have helped us feel a bit less ‘in the dark’🤔
I’m definitely not prepared. We were okay for food. It wouldn’t have been gourmet meals but we could have survived. We realized we failed with not having enough cash and also power banks for charging devices—though we couldn’t even use our phones. Otherwise, we had a nice quiet day with sangria and reading time.
I have to say - all the time I was writing this, I was doubting that I'd actually even want to survive! A power cut is one thing. Zombie apocalypse? I think I'd try to duck out of that one, and no news would only ever be good news!
As ever - thanks for sharing your thoughts and I enjoyed reading. I agree that life can “turn on a pin” and the fragility of that can be really frightening. We must live for today for tomorrow we may be gone.
A good adage. Our ‘survival kit’ is currently half a tank of petrol so we can seek sanctuary with certain friends in the hills 😉
I was awaiting news from my Portuguese correspondent/the Portuguese jury - that's you! - as soon as the outage hit. And you delivered. The lack of phone signal would certainly be a shock, and little access to news. The scaremongering seems unnecessary for some, and yet I read today of at least 4 fatalities due to health machinery failing at home. I think we need a bigger plan and to focus on need at a time of crisis. Glad you are back on-line as it where 😊
1. Unfortunately the 4 casualties were in Spain, where some people decided that making a fire with candles was a good idea - and "modern" people lacking knowledge about "old times", they forgot that they had to have an outlet for smoke and gases to escape. (Remember: carbon monoxide has no smell.)
2. All PT hospitals have generators and worked as normally as possible, prioritizing urgent aid and life support - and there were births in medium light. And when the generators ran out of fuel, the firemen refilled them. In PT there were no casualties as a direct consequence of the "apagão".
Thank you for sharing that update, Marta - absolutely tragic to hear of those poor people in Spain. My personal experience of the day was predominantly one of just not knowing quite how to respond because there was such a lack of clarity about the level of severity (causes/consequences) of what was going on. Would normal life resume soon or had something much more serious and impactful happened? And it really threw into relief how ill-prepared most of us are to deal with a national emergency without clear information/guidance from the authorities.
Ah, that’s so sad but just what I said to Ade. You worry about all those whose lives rely on medical equipment or quick access to medical services - with the phone lines down for so long, and no comms at all from the authorities bar radio (which we don’t have), we wondered how you’d even call an ambulance? And of course a lot of older people live in small, more remote villages. Definitely raised awareness of a few relatively simple things we might all do to be prepared for any kind of disruption at this level.
I wondered why, though, Portugal doesn’t seem to have the emergency messaging to phones that the UK recently introduced? Even that would have helped us feel a bit less ‘in the dark’🤔
I’m definitely not prepared. We were okay for food. It wouldn’t have been gourmet meals but we could have survived. We realized we failed with not having enough cash and also power banks for charging devices—though we couldn’t even use our phones. Otherwise, we had a nice quiet day with sangria and reading time.
I have to say - all the time I was writing this, I was doubting that I'd actually even want to survive! A power cut is one thing. Zombie apocalypse? I think I'd try to duck out of that one, and no news would only ever be good news!