{"id":569747,"date":"2026-04-07T12:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569747\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T12:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:26:13","slug":"iranians-fear-the-worst-as-trump-threatens-power-plants-and-bridges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569747\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranians fear the worst as Trump threatens power plants and bridges"},"content":{"rendered":"

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Zahra Arghavan and Mehdi Alishir stood on their balcony, watching the sun set over Tehran and bracing for the sound of airstrikes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As time ticks down on U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s latest ultimatum<\/a>, their thoughts were clouded by new fears: How long will the power be out if plants are bombed? How would they leave the city if the bridges are taken out?<\/p>\n

Five weeks on, they have grown used to the roar of American and Israeli fighter jets, the sound of explosions and sleepless nights. Like many, they\u2019ve left the capital and returned<\/a> in search of elusive safety. Married for over a decade, they made it through the COVID pandemic and the 12-day war last June.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve used clear packing tape to lines the edges of their windows, a precaution against blasts. Mirrors and fragile objects have been moved or secured. A packed bag holds documents, medications and essentials, ready in case they need to leave quickly.<\/p>\n

In an expletive-laden threat over the weekend, Trump vowed that \u201cTuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day,\u201d and that Iran\u2019s leaders will be \u201cliving in Hell\u201d if they don\u2019t open the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, the situation is really unclear,\u201d Arghavan said. \u201cWe don\u2019t really understand things like how long the power might go out if it does, or what life without electricity would even look like.\u201d <\/p>\n

Alishir said he and his wife could handle life without power \u2014 and potentially without running water \u2014 for a week at most. \u201cIf it goes on longer, we\u2019ll definitely run into problems,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Their struggles began even before the first American and Israeli bombs slammed into Iran on Feb. 28. <\/p>\n

The Iranian government\u2019s crackdown on nationwide protests in January severely limited internet access. The internet monitoring organization NetBlocks says it\u2019s the longest nationwide shutdown ever recorded. <\/p>\n

Arghavan runs a small language school that teaches French to Iranians who want to live in the Canadian province of Quebec.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were basically an online school, and our students had classes with kids abroad,\u201d she said. \u201cAround 50% of our learners were outside the country. But now, with all these internet outages, it\u2019s really disrupting our work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iranians are divided over the war: Some take part in daily pro-government rallies; others quietly cheer the strikes against their leaders while condemning the deaths of civilians and damage to infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The couple blames Israel and the U.S. for starting the war and hope for a diplomatic solution. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really hope an agreement is reached soon and that whatever happens, it ends up helping people, because right now people are the ones paying a heavy price,\u201d Arghavan said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) \u2014 Zahra Arghavan and Mehdi Alishir stood on their balcony, watching the sun…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7589,232237,23,12,793,801,1570,228242,803,129,3,111,2433,153670,21,19,22,20,25,24,964,965,251336],"class_list":{"0":"post-569747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-2024-2025-mideast-wars","9":"tag-2024-2026-mideast-wars","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-general-news","13":"tag-iran","14":"tag-iran-government","15":"tag-iran-war","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-middle-east","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-politics","20":"tag-quebec","21":"tag-tehran","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-united-states-of-america","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-usa","28":"tag-war-and-unrest","29":"tag-world-news","30":"tag-zahra-arghavan"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}