From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is the David.

Today, an economic collapse, a crumbling infrastructure, a contested presidential election,

Venice Way was already in crisis, then the power went out.

It's Wednesday, April 10.

Nick, tell me the story that you were told about what happened in Venice Way last month.

So it was a Thursday last month in Maracaibo and David Artila, who's a publicist there.

Was sitting at his desk when the lights went out.

Nick Casey covers Latin America for the times.

This wasn't anything that surprised him because the lights were always going out in the city.

This is placed on the edge of the electric grid in Venezuela.

So it was not unusual for the lights to go out for a number of hours.

They were rolling blackouts there.

Usually by 4 p.m. the lights are back on.

But then he got a call from his wife who said,

but it was not just a power outage in Maracaibo, but all over Venezuela.

This was something that wasn't usual. This was something no one had really seen or remembered before.

This is true.

But it's not that it's going to explode.

We're talking about a country of 30 million people and almost no one has electricity.

So the power is out across Venezuela, across the entire country.

And that means things get very ugly, very fast.

What had happened to trigger this blackout?

...