In real life, the effects of electricity travel very fast - relatively close to the speed of light. As such, most power outages always strike near instantaneously and always strike an area. In fiction, outages - or repowered structures - often come on light by light, system by system, dramatically, with a strange thumping noise. Truth in Television: this is known as a cascading failure when it is an outage, and systems often power up slowly if turned on via breaker. Subtrope of You Fail Physics Forever. Step-sister to Slow Doors. A product of Rule of Cool. Examples of Slow Electricity include: