The recent major power outage in Spain and Portugal made us wonder how we, in Barrow, can prepare ourselves for anything like that happening here.  Barrow Voice asked Guy Silk to find out more.

So, there they were, Barrow residents Bryony and Lee Musgrave, googling one of the more unusual options on the lunchtime menu at a restaurant in the April Spanish sunshine. Suddenly, no signal. No-one else in the restaurant had one either. Or in the resort. Or in the whole of Spain. The largest power outage in Europe in recent years had just begun and no-one had the first idea how long it would last.

No point lingering in an eatery that can’t serve anything to eat, so Bryony and Lee continued with their original plan of getting a couple of things from the local shop, only to find it full of people panic-buying portable gas cookers, with cash of course – no card payments. And so back to where they were staying to wait it out. No electricity, no internet, no news, no radio and no phone signal to the UK.

A search round the property turned up some useful candles (with matches) and torches (with batteries). A neighbour fortunately had spare barbecue equipment, otherwise they wouldn’t have been able to cook anything. A manual radio looked promising but they didn’t have the right batteries for it. They had a certain amount of cash but it would only last so long. They did have a power bank for charging their phones from the car, so long as there was enough petrol – no chance of filling up of course as all pumps are electronically controlled.

And so, to a dark and quiet evening of cards by candlelight, after about 12 hours, power was restored. Bryony and Lee treated it all as an exciting holiday adventure but they nonetheless took some important learning points from it. For example, it was important to have a decent supply of batteries for things that you know will be useful, and also plenty of cash. They were glad of their candles and torches and also their power bank. A battery- operated (or wind-up) radio would have been a welcome addition.

Could it happen here? Of course it could. Picture yourself on a cold, dark winter’s night. Maybe you’re standing at the cooker making an evening meal. The radio’s on, keeping you company. In another room you can hear the television, or maybe it’s a computer or mobile phone. It’s all bright, cheery and warm. Then, suddenly, it isn’t. The power goes off. It’s dark. There’s no internet. The cooker goes off (if it’s electric). It’s quiet – not even the happy hum of the central heating and the fridge freezer. It’ll soon start getting cold. After a while you can practically hear the contents of the freezer thawing out. What would you do if you had several hours of this? Or several days, come to that?

We all have our own circumstances of course. I have to say that since the outage in Spain, I’ve found myself building a small collection of tinned goods and increasing the amount of cash I have in hand. I’ll begin keeping the car topped up with petrol rather than my usual practice of running it down to nearly empty. And I also excavated an old portable gas cooker from a particularly cobwebby corner of the garage – actually that doesn’t narrow it down all that much as all of the corners are as bad as each other. But it was good to know that it still worked, because, well, you never know, do you?

Guy Silk