A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Officials in Spain are still trying to figure out what caused an unprecedented blackout there yesterday. Power is almost fully back, but the outage hit the entire country, parts of Portugal and France, as well. NPR's Miguel Macias reports from Seville in southern Spain.
MIGUEL MACIAS, BYLINE: Locals in Seville are relatively used to the power going out briefly in their homes. So when the outage hit around 12:30 p.m...
JULIAN MORENO: (Through interpreter) We thought it was just our building, but then we looked out of the window and noticed the traffic lights were not working.
MACIAS: Julian Moreno (ph) was at work when the power outage hit. Like many others in Seville, he went out to the street to make sure it was an entire block. Little did they know that it was entire nation.
MORENO: (Through interpreter) About 15 minutes later, WhatsApp was still working. My son sent me a message to let me know that it was happening across Spain.
MACIAS: Rumors started to fly right away on WhatsApp, which is widely used in Spain, about a nationwide outage. Rumors that were confirmed later.
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PRIME MINISTER PEDRO SANCHEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
MACIAS: Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez spoke to the press past 6 p.m., more than five hours after the outage. He explained that there had been a large oscillation of the energy supply that had resulted in this blackout. But the reason behind that is still unknown. For a few hours after the outage hit, communications were spotty, but still up. Then cellphone service went out completely, and the country came to a halt. Out on the streets, people were stopping each other, asking for information, but information was not coming through as media outlets also scrambled to get power back through generators.
TAMARA MARFIL: (Speaking Spanish).
MACIAS: Tamara Marfil (ph) in Seville says she was so worried that her husband decided to leave work early to go pick up their young daughter from school.
MARFIL: (Through interpreter) I decided to walk back from work, about an hour from my place. I didn't want to catch a bus because I was afraid of what could happen with traffic lights not working.
MACIAS: Trains stopped with some passengers trapped inside. Many of them eventually had to either walk or spend the night at train stations. Air traffic also was severely affected. Supermarkets closed their doors. Traffic lights were not working, and national traffic authorities asked citizens to not travel unless it was strictly necessary. On the streets, locals could be seen gathering supplies from convenience stores - anything from candles to water, ice, food, batteries or radios. Marfil says that they also started to worry that water could shut down. The most difficult part was uncertainty, she says.
MARFIL: (Through interpreter) Another thing was cash. We always pay with our card, and we have very little cash at hand. I had to take money from my daughter's piggy bank.
MACIAS: But despite generally being in good spirits, Spaniards are still dealing with the uncertainty that this outage has caused. This very real test run of what could happen if the power goes out for hours has become a stark reminder of how vulnerable our systems can be.
Miguel Macias, NPR News, Seville, Spain. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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