UK hit by unusual power activity hours before Spain blackout

25 comments

1. So, attacks or an antiquated system finally catching up with modern upgrades 🤷‍♂️

2. I’m going to post this tweet from Spain:

   https://x.com/lugaricano/status/1916947876208586928

   >Back online (still no light here). Lessons from Spain after a really weird day (no electricity, no 4G, no WiFi) for the world

   >1. Go out and buy a pocket battery-power radio. It was really disconcerting to have no way to know what is going on.

   >2. Buy a battery powered torch. There were none left in shops.

   >3. Keep cash. I had none.

   >4. Keep spare batteries.

   I would add some bottled water (our tap system uses electric pumps). Also, stuff you can eat that doesn’t need to be cooked or refrigerated – chocolate and biscuits.

3. Are the Telegraph still banging on about the Heathrow substation fire being either a planned attack, a result of Net Zero, or both at the same time?

4. I think another lesson here is we shouldn’t be so dependant on connected systems for stuff that could easily be provided in offline-first formats.

   Take for example how everything these days is being forced into **subscription** & **always-connected** bullshit. If the Internet suffers a fault or the power goes down, with everything being a subscription your computer becomes little more than a glorified brick.

   If however you have access to stuff like movies, music, games, software, etc that can work offline and not be dependant on you having a connection, then as long as you have some form of backup power source you can carry on working / playing until things go back to normal.

   I have a number of power banks (they’re dirt cheap these days) and they can power my phone for days if necessary, plus my phone has physical CD rips, eBooks, etc so when I’m away from the desk I can keep going even if there isn’t a power socket free (such as if I’m in hospital).

5. Sounds stupid but this is why I setup a solar shed in my garden, it allows me to power garden gadgets like lights, irrigation and water feature all year round but also has 200ah of LifePo4 that can easily power household appliances in case of an emergency. Solar systems are so cheap and easy to setup now that I feel like anyone with a spare roof or bit of space in their garden should have one as a backup.

   Example costs –

   400w eco-worthy solar panels – £160

   Vitron solar charge controller – £60

   200ah lifepo4 12v battery – £320

   1000w pure sine inverter – £90

   Various cables, fuses and connectors – £30

   Came in under £700 and the battery stays topped up even in winter. It’s no brainer for peace of mind.

6. Can I suggest a couple of simple things to store for emergencies, I live in a rural area where the overhead power cables get taken out by trees every time it gets windy.

   We keep a single camping ring and a few gas canisters along with an old-fashioned whistling kettle and a chargeable camping light that we keep charged up, just in case.

7. Is this anything to do with my wife getting our first electric car and plugging it in?

8. The aliens who did this sent the following message: “ack ack, ack ack ack ack!”

9. We were hit in portugal: CASH. Shops switched to backup systems but no cash, no can buy.

10. The big takeaway from this is we really need to be upgrading our aging grid infrastructure.

    We’ve had the Heathrow incident recently, a substation in Maida Vale went up in flames this morning in what looks like poorly maintained/aging equipment causing a cooling oil leak and then a fire.

    The Russian propagandists are always flooding Reddit and social media trying to claim their great leader and his secret agents are so amazing and competent they can magically cause power grids to burst into flames and somehow not get caught on any of the many CCTV cameras surrounding such sites, but in the meantime no-one is talking about how this is really due to poor investment in our grid infrastructure.

11. I wont be surprised if it was aliens something at this rate

12. Patterns of unusual activity on critical infrastructure at a national level, across several nations?

    Shouldn’t we be looking at the obvious culprit? He couldn’t take on the French, their nuclear energy independence is very strategic, but it looks like a pop at the Brits and a successful takedown of the Iberians worked.

    In the plot of this ridiculous Bond movie, 007 has to take out Putin then Trump to restore stability to the world, but he probably loses his fiancée

13. Interestingly I’m being advertised Nuclear Radiation Detector on Amazon… Does the Internet know something I don’t…

14. Hey chaps, thought i would chirp in since im a brit living in madrid, maybe my experience is of value . What that tweet said about radios and batteries is quite true, we have all experienced power cuts, our house, flat building whatever but a whole country its very surreal. I was luckily at home when it happened, but for about 30 minutes the mobile network was cutting in then out, probably overloaded, then it was gone, and this is where i wish i had an analog radio, because i was expecting some sort of emergency broadcast like during covid but nope, the lack of access to news was really disconcerting.Then i thought ill pop down shop to grab some bread for sandwiches, i have two young children, then ill walk to the school to pick them up. Well the supermarket was madness, real panic, they had pulled all the blinds down on the fridges, i guess for hygiene reasons, but people were just grabbing anything and everything. i saw some charcoal and thought ill use the bbq to make a brew! As im grabbing it a couple of guys shoved me out the way and grabbed the remaining 6 bags. It was like covid but felt like people were way more anxious. No water, no milk, some toilet roll, no batteries. This was 1 hour after the power cut… Then the queues to pay were 🫣 . I dropped the stuff home then walked to the school, and this is where i noticed the traffic lights were out, people were driving pretty fast upto junctions so i was expecting an accident every 5 seconds, i felt like a rabbit trying to cross the road at times, but much to my suprise, it was working ok people would stop for pedestrians most of the time. This was north madrid, a family area, perhaps thats why. Kids were happy to be out of school early, took them home, saw huge queues in chinese shops, people trying to buy batteries, radios i think. My phone was now a brick, but i saw some neighbours in the garage charging their phones using their cars, pretty good idea i thought, so i charged it up fot a bit, but realised its kind of pointless when theres no network. Then night drew in and i was thinking wow its going to get so dark, we wont be able to see anything, better get them in the bath now, but it was already too dark, bathroom was pitchblack, got no candles or torch. kids were scared, so we all got into bed. I lay there thinking what we will do tomorrow, how long will it take to fix, imagining people stranded in places away from their families. i guess this is what it was like during the war a bit. Nothing you can do but just sit there in the dark, then about 10 minutes later everything started coming back on, and there was some cheering outside. It was only 10 hours for me, and not really a big deal, im not going to build a bunker for such an event, but i think if it had gone on longer, things would fall apart rapidly and dramatically.

15. Has any other euro country / uk ever had a national blackout in the last 50 years?

16. The comments on that article, “NetZero”, “NetZero”, “NetZero”. Did they miss the part where the blip was caused by a gas power plant and an interconnect!

17. Someone saw our current timeline and fired up the time machine ?

18. I keep two large powerbanks charged at all times for this reason, and replace them every 4 years.

    They’ve came in useful more times than I can remember. Family members rushed to hospital quickly? I drop off my powerbank and a charging cable without a second thought. That alone gave us our only form of communication with my dad whilst he was in A&E – for 26 hours.

    Stranded in the car with low battery? Pull the powerbank out of the glove box. There are also 3 small battery powered torches and a first aid kit in there. (A legal requirement in Europe!)

    Going on holiday? Take the powerbank.

    My Energiser torch is USB powered too, to my powerbank can charge it like 3 times before it’s out. The torch also has a USB port which can act as a powerbank.

    I have a baofeng handheld radio with short distance PMR channels programmed into it as well as BBC radio stations.

    Being self sufficient doesn’t have to mean full on prepper.

19. We had a power outage of some kind that same morning. We woke up to all the appliances clocks flashing. West Yorkshire.

20. Exxonmobil and Shell orchestrated it to blame it on “Net Zero” and create a wave of anti-renewable sentiment. Check back on me in 2 weeks to see if I have not been disappeared.

21. But concerned about my kids insulin in this heat and potentially no working fridge 

22. Thank fck the shops are shut cos I def would be nipping out to buy choc hob nobs after reading this sub and they wouldn’t last the hour😉

23. Not to be a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist… but want to bet Russia is behind this?

24. Are you guys still on 4G!!!? Is this the thing!? You’re switching over to 5!!?

    About bloody time to let it go FFS!!

25. It seems more and more like an organized fsb cyber attack but why isn’t that option delved into more?

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