Why should we necessarily think it's our government, or even the Russians, for that matter? Why would either country take out the grid to Buenos Aires? There is no geopolitical or strategic benefit.
Al Qaeda took down the twin towers, and they were a non-state actor. There are plenty of nefarious, non-state actor groups out in the wild that are tech savvy.
Then again, all it takes is drooping lines, or something similar, to blackout an entire region. If the grid supporting Buenos Aires alone were taken out, that cuts power to millions of people -- I think B.A. has just less than half of the population of Argentina living there. 15 million in the metro alone.
I'm aware that Russia and the US have been playing hacker towards each other, but I don't think that either would try to take out the other's grid except in time of war, because one Trident sub has enough firepower to turn European Russia into a radioactive wasteland (and vice versa).
I was implying that if it was a cyber-attack, it was simply a "test", or "proof of concept" - or, to paraphrase Josh again, "to send a message". Your point about non-state actors is an excellent one though. Then there's the gray area of non-state actors that are backed by states to various degrees.
I imagine the infrastructure in Argentina isn't in that great of shape (maybe it is?) but a cascading failure can happen regardless, given the way electrical grids are interconnected and running close to 100% capacity at given points in the 24 hour day cycle and the annual/yearly cycle (increased air conditioning and/or heating demands during certain seasons). I did make the point that the blackout happened on election day in Argentina, but that could very well be a coincidence.
Of course any KiwiSDR online probably went offline but the moment the power got cut, I bet that noise floor dropped down to basically nothing when all the cheap switching supplies and LEDs went off at once.
R4002 and I are clearly tuned to the same frequency and his ammo comments have me wondering: grid goes down, what's the next comms step for those of you prepared for this? It's the reason I got involved in HAM. And while I have the gear, energy and skills to communicate, I don't have a gameplan besides listening on calling frequencies and waiting.
Presuming you have back up power, HF-SSB for long-haul comms and lots of monitoring of your local radio chatter (CB, FRS/GMRS and MURS as well as amateur and the various land mobile services).
I have the relevant HF frequencies/nets written down on paper and included in my copies of the US Army Survival Manual and US Army FM 24-18 communications field manual -
https://fas.org/irp/doddir/army/fm24-18.pdf (which has lots of great info on building field-expedient antennas, NVIS propagation and other HF topics in addition to local VHF comms). Both of those manuals/frequency lists are part of my grab-and-go emergency bags (the bags also include several VHF/UHF handhelds, AM/FM/SW portables, medical gear, and the usual assortment of survival equipment/emergency food and water purification equipment).
If you're going to stay where you're at, lots of monitoring should probably be done to get an idea of what's going on around you. Having a list of the calling frequencies and emergency nets puts you way ahead of most folks. When I think about a lot of people my age (I'm in my early 30s)...I know that most of them don't even own a portable AM/FM radio anymore. They get all their information from their smartphone.
As far as supplies go - I make a point to spend a small amount of every paycheck on emergency preparedness supplies, generally ammunition, batteries, emergency food rations and similar things. I'm lucky enough to live in a place where you can order ammunition online.