Shared crisis lessons for homeowners, local leaders, and entrepreneurs from the Zermatt blackout over Easter and how to apply it next time.

Over the Easter weekend 2025, unusually heavy snowfall in Zermatt blocked roads and trains, caused trees to collapse onto power lines, and cut the village off from civilization for three days. No electricity, no fresh supplies.

I was in Zermatt at that time. Alone with two of my kids.

It was a great lessons-learned moment for the kids, helping them to realize how little gets done when electricity fades.

There weren’t just learnings for the kids, but also for the local authorities of Zermatt — even though they are used to power cuts, avalanches, and floods. How come I know? One of my military comrades organized a lessons-learned Zoom session with the local authorities of Zermatt and shared the screen recording. The chief of staff of the communal crisis team is also a military guy, hence the connection. That’s how Switzerland learns and works — we call it the active reserve system.

For a long time, I have prepared my home for emergencies, and I have been laughed at for my armageddon fantasies many times. Looking at the real-life learnings from Zermatt’s local authorities, I feel somewhat rehabilitated.

Furthermore, the learnings from Zermatt are valuable for any entrepreneur. Remember Zermatt generates most of its revenue from tourism, and most hotel operators are local entrepreneurs.

So let’s look into the most important lessons.

Electricity: Grid vs. Island Operation

Switzerland prepared for a possible shortage in the winter of 2022/2023 due to the war in Ukraine. As Zermatt has its own (small) hydro power plant, the village set up an island operation system during that time. Island operation allows for the consumption of self-produced electricity even if the grid is down.

However, not all consumers can be served during off-grid times, so you need a concept for prioritization.

Over the Easter weekend in 2025, the island operation worked well in Zermatt, but there were still some discussions about prioritization: It was decided to prioritize the hotels over the private households, to ease the pressure on the tourists who are not familiar with local circumstances. At the same time, some hotels still heated their infinity pools whilst their neighbors had no electricity at all.

Degradation needs to be graceful in times of crisis, or you risk blowing up even your backup island operation. That’s why preparing a concept for prioritization is a good idea.

Communication Backups

Listening to the local authorities of Zermatt, the hardest part was to mobilize the staff after the blackout hit at 01:30 am. Communications were knocked out, too, so how could they inform their employees to report to the crisis management situation room?

Even after the employees were finally reached (mostly through word-of-mouth and I-know-somebody-who-knows-somebody), communications remained an issue throughout the crisis. The mobile network was back after one day thanks to the island operation, but the internet was gone for almost three days. And without internet, access to documents stored on cloud systems was impossible. It was also impossible to inform tourists and the population about situation updates online; the only source of information was posters at some defined emergency contact points.

After the crisis, the communal authorities contemplate procuring some Starlink systems to avoid a total internet outage in the future.

Support Staff Pools

Even with backup systems in place for electricity and communication, the weakest link was the people: After 2 days of non-stop operation, the staff were exhausted. Because Zermatt was still completely cut off from the rest of the world, no relief personnel could be dispatched to the village.

As a learning from the crisis, the communal authorities plan to set up a support staff pool from the local population for future crises.

Conclusion

Crisis preparation pays off, no matter if you are a homeowner, a member of the local authorities, or an entrepreneur.

And as every crisis is different, it’s impossible to prepare for every aspect of the next crisis. That’s where after-action reviews come in.

And just like in the case of Zermatt, if you have learned something, share it with others so that they can learn, too. No matter what crisis, we’re stronger together than alone.