The Moment Everything Went Dark

By Caroline Burke

There’s something oddly grounding about a blackout, especially when it happens far from home. I learned that firsthand while studying abroad in Spain this past semester, when, on April 28th, electricity was lost across Spain, Portugal, and parts of France in one of the Iberian Peninsula’s most significant power outages in history. There was no WiFi or lights, only silence and a collective pause that no one had prepared for. At first, everyone did the same thing: they checked their phones, hoping it was just a router issue. Then came the realization that it wasn’t just us.