When the power goes off, ordinary tasks begin to require decisions. How much charge is left in the phone? Can a meal be made? Who needs to know that getting through the evening may now be difficult?
The inconvenience is real enough. So is the discovery that much of what we call managing on our own depends on arrangements we seldom have to think about.
The BBC reports that around 6,000 remained without power across Northern Ireland and the Republic after Storm Boelo. Its report also says that roughly 470 incidents, including fallen trees and flooding, had been reported to the Department for Infrastructure. Those figures cannot tell us how any particular person is coping. They give us reason to look beyond the assumption that everyone affected simply needs to sit tight.
There is a useful distinction between being capable and being able to cope under any circumstances. A person can organise their life carefully and still find that one interruption removes several of their options at once. We should be wary of treating the need for help as evidence that somebody has failed to prepare.
Preparation matters, of course. Keeping a torch somewhere findable is more useful than having an elaborate conversation about resilience in the dark. But there is a limit to what an individual household can reasonably anticipate or provide for. Beyond that limit, the quality of our relationships starts to matter very practically.
That does not mean every neighbour is available, equipped or obliged to solve the problem. People have their own difficulties, including ones nobody else can see. The useful response is more modest: ask rather than assume. A specific offer of help gives someone a choice; a confident judgement that they will be fine gives them very little.
Nor should neighbourliness become an excuse to expect less of the services on which people depend. Both responsibilities remain.
When our own lights come back on, our attention will naturally move elsewhere. Before it does, there is one practical thing worth checking: whether the person we were concerned about has their options back too.