It was spring 2025, and Cameron and I decided to do a little home improvement. We may have taken out the entire Iberian Peninsula.
This is one I’ve been meaning to write down for a while.
I’ve done a lot of projects on our houses in the states. Electrical, plumbing, you name it. I hadn’t done much of that here in Spain, but I figured it couldn’t be that different.
So one day Cameron and I decided to do a little electrical work in his room. Very minor. He wanted a smart home compatible switch for his overhead lights. We had smart plugs everywhere, but not this. Sure, let’s give it a shot.
We turned the power off, as you do, and got started. It turns out the electrical system here is a bit more confusing than what we were expecting. We had some questions. We took our time, phones out, AI at the ready, trying to figure out which wire went where. At some point we looked at each other and thought, “I’m not sure this is right.” There were still a few wires hanging out, but we wanted to test it.
So we turned the power back on. Snap. The lights came on, and then immediately went off.
Okay, obviously something’s wrong. Wires crossed. We went back into his room and quietly started undoing what we’d done. Then we heard voices in the hall. Not someone having a passing conversation, but a gathering.
Oh no.
What are they gathering about? We didn’t trip the whole building, did we?
I put my ear up to our front door. Sure enough, multiple neighbors were out in the hallway, which in our building usually means something isn’t quite right. I stepped outside. And sure enough, the power in the whole building was out.
Okay. Maybe there’s a big breaker somebody can flip. Ours was already off at this point, so we weren’t going to do any more harm. The plan was simple: undo everything and quietly hope the power came back.
But the neighbors weren’t looking for the breakers. They were looking outside. I joined, and we noticed there were no lights across the street either. It was daytime, but you still should see some lights, and there were none. I was playing it cool. Nonchalantly asking. “Qué está pasando?”
As a group, we wandered to the front door. The whole block was down. And I thought to myself, there’s no possible way we could take out an entire block just by putting in a light switch incorrectly. But maybe?
So I was concerned. But as Cameron and I set out to explore the streets of Eixample, we noticed that all the buildings were without power. The next block was out. And the block after that. The traffic lights too. And oddly, strangely, I started to feel much, much better about this more widespread outage. My skills might not be tuned to Catalan electrician standards, but they’re not this bad.
Turns out, that was the day (in fact, the hour, minute, and second) the entire Iberian Peninsula lost power.
To this day they still don’t know what it was, or at least I never heard the answer. Whether it was a cyber attack from the Russians. A massive power grid failure. Or a couple of dudes in Barcelona trying to wire a light switch they had no business attempting. It remains a mystery.
And in typical Spanish fashion, it turned into a fantastic day for many of us. Everyone poured into the streets. People had picnics. Some restaurants stayed open, taking cash. We, like good Americans, rushed to the grocery store to hoard as much as we could carry. It was calm and orderly, and there was plenty of bread and milk and no one seemed overly concerned. We grabbed the essentials, ran to the Argentinian market for steaks to grill, then just hung out at a cafe and became part of a very unique shared experience.
That’s pretty much what the whole country did. It was an unexpected day off. No looting, no riots, nothing. Just a very chill day while we all wondered what the hell was happening. The news reporters started sharing what they knew and, I kid you not, reported on people stuck in elevators and beer getting warm. Clearly the two biggest issues of the day.
Six or eight hours later, the power started coming back. But people cheered, and stayed outside to enjoy the day. We were all writing this one off. Later at dinner overlooking the newly re-lit city, Cameron and I swore off electrical work in Spain. Not something we should attempt again. Because somewhere in the back of our minds, we both still thought it might have been us.
Well… until this past weekend, when Cameron and I decided to try our electrical skills again. We have lights on our beautiful patio, but we were missing lights shining on two trees. We figured we could put those in ourselves. Sure enough, after a lot of work, we turned the power back on and snap, it went straight out again. Crossed wires. This time, luckily, only our apartment was affected. A couple of rewires later, the lights came on and stayed on. The patio looks better than ever. A good place to sit and talk about fun memories, like the day we took out the Iberian Peninsula. Maybe.