Power grid will fail on November 17 in US – false

sharing videos appearing to show U.S. President Donald Trump announcing an upcoming 90-day blackout of the country's power grid.

By Maria LarsonCreative Director/Copy Editor A military plan to prepare for disruptions has become the basis for social media warnings that the United States could lose electricity for 90 days. But preparing military bases to operate during an emergency is not the same as announcing that a ...

November 21—South Africa—Rolling blackouts were implemented nationwide and continued for the duration of the weekend. This followed similar outages earlier in the same month, all of which were triggered as a result of a collapsed coal silo at Eskom's Majuba Power Station, during a period when the state power company was already experiencing severe supply strain on the national grid ...

Searches for "power grid shut down" have no official notice behind them: we found no federal announcement that the grid will shut down. When we checked on November 11, 2026, the Department of Energy's newsroom and NERC's news list carried no ...

No blackout is scheduled in anything we found. November 17 is the day of FEMA and the FCC's nationwide Emergency Alert System test: about one minute on radio and TV at approximately 2:20 p.m. ET, a test of alerts, not of the power grid.

No. It is the scheduled nationwide test of the Emergency Alert System at about 2:20 p.m. ET on November 17, 2026.

A cyberattack on banks or the power grid is a real danger, and we have written about it. But a power grid, the banking system and the whole internet are three very different machines, run by thousands of separate companies in dozens of countries.

However, in this context of cyberattacks and following the practical guides disseminated by some states to face the first 72 hours of an emergency, it is wise to be prepared and know what is necessary to best handle a potential power outage.

The broadcast will last around one minute before programmes resume as usual. The message will clearly state that it is only a test and that the public does not need to take any action. The exercise is designed to check that the American warning system works properly should it ever be needed during a real emergency. It is not a test of the electricity grid, nor does it involve switching off power supplies or disconnecting the internet.