Be prepared: lessons learned from Portugal, Spain blackout

Residents of Portugal and Spain are now out of the dark after a huge power outage hit most of the Iberian Peninsula Monday.

The blackout grounded planes, halted public transportation and impacted hospitals.

While the cause is still unclear, the situation is a good reminder of our reliance on electricity and phone service.

Former Connecticut resident and NBC CT Responds Consumer Reporter Caitlin Burchill’s cousin, Casey Macaulay, shared a celebratory video with us from her home in Lisbon, Portugal, when power was restored.

While she said it was wonderful to see the community banding together, when she lost cell service for seven-and-a-half hours, here’s what she wishes she had for the blackout:

“My number one advice would be to go out and buy an old school radio, a transistor radio, and make sure you have batteries for it, because you realize how dependent you are on getting your news from the internet. We had no way to get news,” said Macaulay.

“I know people who were out in their cars listening to their radio because it was the only way to find out what was happening," she said.

In case of a blackout here, the U.S. Department of Energy urges folks to have flashlights accessible in each room of your home, with plenty of batteries on hand.

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Plus, the department says, you should have enough drinking water available to last a couple of days.

Think at least a gallon a day for each person in your home.

And pack your pantry with easy-to-open nonperishable foods that require no cooking.

And it's grill season, the perfect time to make sure yours is ready to cook.

The Department of Energy says get your gas tank filled or have coal or wood on hand.

And just in case an outage means we can’t get online, make sure you have cash.

Macaulay was sure glad she did.

Plus, experts say to keep physical copies of important documents.

Don’t just rely on them being stored in the cloud.