Social media flooded with photos of people thriving during massive power blackout in Spain

“I Survived the Great Spanish Blackout of 2025: AMA.”

What a text to wake up to on a Monday morning at 7:30, East Coast time, from my friend Shannon to our group chat. Shannon had been dog sitting in Andalusia with her boyfriend and his mother. By then it would have been 1:30 p.m. where she was in Spain. As the blackout happened, Shannon and her party were in an underground hammam in Granada, a Turkish bath about two hours from the house. “All the emergency lights came on and the spa music stopped. We still got our massages,” she wrote. “We thought it was just the spa that lost power because of course we didn’t have phones.” Once they realized it wasn’t only the spa, she was quite scared, she said, but the feeling turned to disorientation as she understood what was happening.

The blackout started that afternoon and in some parts of Spain and Portugal continued for 18 hours, The New York Timeswrote. Many news sources shared depictions of lives suddenly plunged into chaos: no cell service, no electricity, stuck on trains and in traffic, no way to get home or extract money from ATMs. There was even the plundering of grocery stores. But what also happened was that people returned to their roots and found ingenious, communal ways to pass time, whether it was by dancing, playing, relaxing, or even smoking a cigar.

“In the midst of it all.. something beautiful happened: we lifted our heads off the mobile. We pulled over. We went out,” wrote local design firm Milanta on Instagram. “... And we went back to the street. Let's talk. Let's look at the skies. To share. To play. The parks were fuller than ever! They were filled with laughter, stories and real connections.”

“In Barcelona’s Gracia neighborhood, squares were packed with sunbathers and people reading books or playing chess,” AP reported. “In Madrid, young and old gathered on sidewalks to listen to radios that, once obsolete, were suddenly lifelines. People in Sevilla clapped and tapped their feet to flamenco.” Many embraced the chaos.

“At a vehicle inspection center, employees hung a net and played volleyball,” AP continued. “Staff at a non-profit foundation in Madrid’s Embajadores neighborhood pulled tables onto sidewalks and challenged passersby to a friendly game of trivia. Others played UNO on public benches. Long lines formed for free ice cream that store owners decided to give away.”

Shannon got home eventually, using GPS and maps. Cell service returned after about three hours, she said. “We expected more traffic and chaos…but it was honestly fine. Everyone [was] just kinda wandering around confused. Tourists who’d lost their maps.”

At home, there was still no light. They lit candles and ate items from the fridge they were concerned would spoil. The stars were beautiful in particular, Shannon said, and they even saw some shooting across the sky. Indeed, many photographers agreed and went out into the night to take long exposures of the skies, "something impossible so far because of light pollution," as photographer Chema G. Marmol wrote.

For Shannon, the darkness became not just tenable, but even relaxing. “Instead of working, I read a book for like four hours straight because…it was the only option. Which was fantastic,” she said. “It gave me a chance to practice letting go. Like I was worried about work, about contacting people, about giving updates, about whether or [not] it would come back before the food spoiled in the fridge…but in the end, there was quite literally nothing I could do to affect the situation.” It was, she said, “Weirdly Zen.” At her location, electricity returned overnight.

The New York Times reported that by Tuesday power had returned to all the parts of Spain, Portugal, and France that had experienced the blackout. But there’s such beauty in knowing people can still return to simpler times with ease and even joy if they need to.