‘I felt physically sick, thinking we were doomed’
16:57, 29 Apr 2025Updated 17:38, 29 Apr 2025
Teresa and Gary Bickley were forced to cook pizza on their barbecue due to the widespread loss of power in western Europe yesterday(Image: Teresa Bickley)
One Merseyside couple living in Spain has told of their terror as the lights went out across the country yesterday afternoon, Monday April 28. The blackout, impacting Spain, Portugal and France, threw public transport, communication networks and vital services into disarray.
The power failure also took a toll on water supply infrastructure. The source of the outages is still under investigation with no conclusive cause yet determined. Portugal’s Prime Minister Luís Montenegro has squashed suspicions of a cyber-attack, and Spain’s leader Pedro Sánchez has cautioned against speculation.
Teresa and Gary Bickley, who are originally from Heswall but also have a home in Ayamonte, Spain, were forced to cook pizza on their barbecue due to the widespread loss of power in western Europe. Speaking to the ECHO, Teresa said: “We were at home around midday when electric went off.
“We checked the fuse box and everything was in order, so then assumed it must be a local thing and expected it to come back on shortly afterwards..
“Nearby friends messaged to say theirs was off and then one messaged to say her Spanish neighbour told her it was the whole of Andalusia – which we just thought was nonsense! Then, someone posted that it was the whole of Spain!
“Friends in nearby Algarve (Portugal) said they had same problem. By now everyone was getting concerned and then others said France was also affected.
“My first thoughts were Putin, as I recently read an article about him saying the EU must be punished for siding with Ukraine. We were then very, very frightened.”
Teresa continued: “We were due to return to the UK on Wednesday (April 30), and wondered what would happen to flights. I then lost roaming on my phone and we were totally cut off.
“It 100% felt like when we got locked down with covid; not knowing what the future held, everywhere went eerily quiet, no cars and just birds. Luckily we have a barbecue, so we made a makeshift pizza oven and cooked two pizzas we had in the fridge.
“We ate them whilst making plans about what we would do if there was no electric the following day.
“We decided we would move onto our boat which is moored at a nearby marina. It has a gas cooker and electricity powered by batteries. We just hoped the car barriers would be working.
“We’d been stuck here for seven months when covid struck and all flights were cancelled and we wondered if similar fate awaited us – I said we’d just have to sail back!
“By torchlight we went to bed and couldn’t sleep wondering what the future held. I woke around 6am and there was still no electric; so I then felt physically sick, thinking we were doomed.
“To our complete joy the electric bedroom clock came back on at 6.50am – and I can’t begin to describe the relief we both felt.”