Yesterday there was a complete electricity blackout affecting Spain and Portugal and partly other neighbor countries. At around 12:30 everything just shut off.
First I've checked if it was just my house as usual, then the neighbors, and finally realized that there was no electricity anywhere around me. The phone network was not working either but I still had internet access through optical fiber since the router is connected to a UPS.
No news anywhere.
I've then proceeded to shut down the server which would finish the UPS battery in ~20 minutes and was not as important as keeping the router on.
I've tried to post in SN to inform and ask for updated. I couldn't because of course my Alby Hub was down... First lesson is to have more channels on my mobile node and to keep some custodial sats on SN...
Something that really helped was Meshtastic (decentralized wireless off-grid mesh networking LoRa protocol). I could talk with people all around my city and share updates. I also managed to have a friend visit a relative that's old and was alone.
At home I sourced as many batteries as possible and connected them to the UPS once the internal once was over. But they didn't last much. I then lost internet access, GSM was still not working and the optical fiber router was out of power).
I decided to go to a more or less nearby department store to get a large solar panel, a large lead battery, charge controllers and cables. I paid with cash... Would have been in a bad position without it. Lightning wouldn't have worked even if it was accepted, but I would like to learn if this can be fixed/improved somehow.
Anyway, the solar panel I bought was just a bit too large and didn't fit. Of course I couldn't contact my friend with a van to ask for help. I've tried asking around in the parking lot to people with large vehicles but everyone had other plans (understandable). I went back and change it for a smaller, less powerful, and more expensive one.
All the navigation with the car was smooth with OpenStreetMap. Once home, I disassembled the UPS and connected it to the new large battery. We had internet again. And I've placed the solar panel outside to charge the depleted UPS batteries.
Some neighbors came by and where happy to have internet access and a way to charge their phones.
I've cooked dinner in the gas stove and kept chatting on Meshtastic. After a few hours, 8 in total in my case, the electricity came back. I had my mains off to protect me from the spike and after I heard some neighbors celebrating the return to the 21st Century, I switched on mine.
I think I was in a very good situation given the circumstances. But others had huge problems moving around without traffic lights, trains, subway, tram, ... And there were lots of people stuck in elevators, or with a need for assisted breathing at home and stuff like that.
Oh, and by the way, no gas station worked... Because guess what, the pumps run on electricity... And some areas didn't have water because they needed electric pumps for pressure.
What do you think? Any tips for next time?
TLDR:
- No electricity means no communications most of the time. Get Meshtastic.
- You need to have a bit of solar capacity, a large charged battery, and an inverter to be able to plug stuff to it.
- Keep cash, or assume you won't be able to buy anything.
- Keep some sats in SN for emergencies xD.