It's false because they weren't explicitly "prohibiting" refrigerator and vacuum cleaner use per se (as the article says), no need to do that, just cutting the power off completely was enough to do the trick.
But, yeah, on a more general level whoever was designing any electrical-related stuff had to have that in mind (the power cuts and the reduced power consumption asked from us, that is).
This discussion also reminded me that, as a kid, I was really in awe in how the (analogue) telephone network was still working even when the power went out, it seemed like magic. There was an article posted yesterday here on HN about how we're expecting rolling black-outs in our mobile phone network over parts of Europe, goes to show that in some ways the system back then that we had in Romania was a lot more resilient in face of power-cuts compared to what we have now available over most of Europe.
But, yeah, on a more general level whoever was designing any electrical-related stuff had to have that in mind (the power cuts and the reduced power consumption asked from us, that is).
This discussion also reminded me that, as a kid, I was really in awe in how the (analogue) telephone network was still working even when the power went out, it seemed like magic. There was an article posted yesterday here on HN about how we're expecting rolling black-outs in our mobile phone network over parts of Europe, goes to show that in some ways the system back then that we had in Romania was a lot more resilient in face of power-cuts compared to what we have now available over most of Europe.