Today, Europe ended at the Pyrenees for energy

The lights went out across Spain and Portugal today because of a power surge that may have been a cyber attack. The lack of grid connection to the rest of Europe means it could be out for 10 hours.

I’m in Barcelona today, where this afternoon all at once lights went out, phones went silent, elevators and metros stopped with people trapped inside and traffic lights went blank. A “very strong oscillation in the electrical network” caused a blackout across the entirety of the Iberian Peninsula at 12:38, according to the Spanish transmission system operator. The blackout has shut down not only power plants but also cell phone towers, meaning that for a large part of this afternoon people were completely cut off from the outside world. It is unclear whether the disruption is the result of a cyberattack from Russia or other forces, something that Spain’s government has been warning about for some time. The lack of energy connections across the Pyrenees between France and Spain makes Iberia particularly vulnerable to things like this because it is an energy island, and Paris has been uncooperative in efforts to try to fix that situation.

One of the most striking things about today has been the helplessness that you feel when completely cut off from communication tools. When the power went out, so did the internet and even mobile data towers, meaning that no contact with the outside world was possible. I spent the first hours of the blackout thinking it was just the building, and it was only when I got a moment of mobile reception later this afternoon that I got messages telling me it was all of Spain and Portugal. Think about if we were all cut off from these communication tools for days, or even weeks.