Yesterday, Sunday June 17, something unusual happened in my country (Argentina) along with Uruguay, part of Paraguay, and southern Brazil. At 7:07 AM there was a total blackout. After the event, 48 million people were left without electricity.
According to the authorities, there was a power overload in a transmission line that connects the Yacyretá and Salto Grande hydroelectric plants, the largest generators in the country (see the attached map), but the most serious was a technical failure in the network protectors, which should have encapsulated the cut in the Litoral zone, in other words, the blackout should have affected a relatively small region of Argentinian northeastern. Approximately 8 hours later the energy began to be restored and everything became an anecdote.
The Minister of Energy of Argentina declared: "What we know at this moment is that at 7.07 there was a failure in the Transport System, failures that occur regularly in both the Argentine system and any other, is not something abnormal," and then added "what is abnormal or extraordinary and that can not happen is the chain of subsequent events that caused the total disconnection”.
Beyond the event itself, I would like to share how I lived that experience and some thoughts that went through my mind.
That morning I got up early to take advantage of the morning silence to read, and I found that the emergency lights in my house were on; "what bad luck, a power outrage" I thought. After that I decided to check if it was an electrical problem in my house or if it was something that also affected my neighbors. As I work for a company that monitors the Internet service in my city I connected from my smarphone to the monitoring system and I checked if the area where I live was with energy. The first thing I noticed was that the whole monitoring system was extremely slow. Finally I noticed that not only my area was down, but the whole city. That caught my attention, so I tried to open the website of the local newspapers to see what was going on, but none of them worked. So I decided to listen to the local radios to see if I heard anything, but to my surprise I went all over the dial to discover that out of the dozens of signals that usually exist, barely a couple worked. I stayed listening and suddenly I heard that the blackout was in the whole country and some bordering countries.
In this moment I got scared!.... For a few seconds I was like in a state of shock, and then my mind quickly changed into a kind of "survival mode". Everything for years we have shared in this forum passed through my mind quickly, so I made a list of things that would be necessary if the blackout went on for a long time (non-perishable food, hygiene items, batteries, candles, water, etc.) and went quickly to a supermarket.
The first thing I noticed was that the city was normal and quiet, people were circulating normally, the supermarket was still almost empty (it was very early),... in short, at times I felt like a fool, I was taking precautions for a kind of apocalypse and thinking about the best way to protect my family, while the world around me was functioning normal, as if nothing happened. My thoughts were firmly focused on how to survive without heating system in the home, without being able to communicate with anyone (especially this forum), without water, etc.
After about 8 hours the power came back, and everything seemed to normalize. I calmed down, but some ideas stayed in my mind. The first was that this small event could be a warning of what might happen in a not too distant future,... and if it wasn't, I personally could eventually take it as such. The second was a general idea of how poorly average people are prepared to react to such an event. I could only imagine that, in the face of a similar but longer event, it would take a long time to most people to become aware of how their lives have changed drastically, and eventually they could abruptly panic.
The truth is that at the moment I feel a little stupid, like if my reaction had been a little exaggerated, but I still think it was a positive experience to have gone through this small event.
Well, this is the brief chronicle of what happened. I wanted to share it with you in order to hear other opinions and eventually discuss what steps could be taken to be adequately prepared, and how to proceed if a larger event occurs in the places where each of us lives.
According to the authorities, there was a power overload in a transmission line that connects the Yacyretá and Salto Grande hydroelectric plants, the largest generators in the country (see the attached map), but the most serious was a technical failure in the network protectors, which should have encapsulated the cut in the Litoral zone, in other words, the blackout should have affected a relatively small region of Argentinian northeastern. Approximately 8 hours later the energy began to be restored and everything became an anecdote.
The Minister of Energy of Argentina declared: "What we know at this moment is that at 7.07 there was a failure in the Transport System, failures that occur regularly in both the Argentine system and any other, is not something abnormal," and then added "what is abnormal or extraordinary and that can not happen is the chain of subsequent events that caused the total disconnection”.
Beyond the event itself, I would like to share how I lived that experience and some thoughts that went through my mind.
That morning I got up early to take advantage of the morning silence to read, and I found that the emergency lights in my house were on; "what bad luck, a power outrage" I thought. After that I decided to check if it was an electrical problem in my house or if it was something that also affected my neighbors. As I work for a company that monitors the Internet service in my city I connected from my smarphone to the monitoring system and I checked if the area where I live was with energy. The first thing I noticed was that the whole monitoring system was extremely slow. Finally I noticed that not only my area was down, but the whole city. That caught my attention, so I tried to open the website of the local newspapers to see what was going on, but none of them worked. So I decided to listen to the local radios to see if I heard anything, but to my surprise I went all over the dial to discover that out of the dozens of signals that usually exist, barely a couple worked. I stayed listening and suddenly I heard that the blackout was in the whole country and some bordering countries.
In this moment I got scared!.... For a few seconds I was like in a state of shock, and then my mind quickly changed into a kind of "survival mode". Everything for years we have shared in this forum passed through my mind quickly, so I made a list of things that would be necessary if the blackout went on for a long time (non-perishable food, hygiene items, batteries, candles, water, etc.) and went quickly to a supermarket.
The first thing I noticed was that the city was normal and quiet, people were circulating normally, the supermarket was still almost empty (it was very early),... in short, at times I felt like a fool, I was taking precautions for a kind of apocalypse and thinking about the best way to protect my family, while the world around me was functioning normal, as if nothing happened. My thoughts were firmly focused on how to survive without heating system in the home, without being able to communicate with anyone (especially this forum), without water, etc.
After about 8 hours the power came back, and everything seemed to normalize. I calmed down, but some ideas stayed in my mind. The first was that this small event could be a warning of what might happen in a not too distant future,... and if it wasn't, I personally could eventually take it as such. The second was a general idea of how poorly average people are prepared to react to such an event. I could only imagine that, in the face of a similar but longer event, it would take a long time to most people to become aware of how their lives have changed drastically, and eventually they could abruptly panic.
The truth is that at the moment I feel a little stupid, like if my reaction had been a little exaggerated, but I still think it was a positive experience to have gone through this small event.
Well, this is the brief chronicle of what happened. I wanted to share it with you in order to hear other opinions and eventually discuss what steps could be taken to be adequately prepared, and how to proceed if a larger event occurs in the places where each of us lives.
