People would return to subsistence farming while working on infrastructure. Presumably there’d be an anarchist “digger” era. Cabbage has a pretty high yield if seeds could be distributed fast enough to limit widespread starvation (in the growing period, perishable goods could be consumed). Presumably there’d be widescale looting and deaths anyway - there’s not enough space to grow enough food to sustain inner city folk and outer city folk probably wouldn’t be too happy accommodating the new influx.
A few year back Popular Mechanics went over this,
they said it would cost about $400 to build. If they were put in the right places you could cause a lot of trouble. It’s not like you would have to take down the entire country to cause major disruptions. Hit the all of our coasts at the same time and take power away from 50% of the people would be enough to cause trouble for years. Imagine the New York blackout in 1977 scaled up. You would still have many of the same problems, parts, food, transportation and it would take many years and cost billions to fix everything.
After living through the '03 blackout, I think going a week or two without power would be more of an inconvenience than an apocalyptic catastrophe. Reading up on the sequence of failures that led to that blackout shows how fragile the system is, but also how protective measures limited the damage.
I’m not saying it would be pleasant, but far from the doomsday scenario that some would make it out to be. The only way I can envision such a scenario would be the majority of the nation to be without power for more than a few months. So the question then becomes, how likely is it for a large CME to cause that amount of damage? In my mind, the most likely doomsday scenario is a widespread pandemic like the ones that played out in movies (e.g Contagion) or throughout history (e.g. the spanish flu & black death.)
The difference between a “normal” power system failure blackout and an EMP induced blackout is that after the EMP blackout, few backup power sources will be running.
Look at the nighttime pictures in the URL you gave - a fair number of lights (especially in large urban areas) remained lit despite the power outage. Hospitals, local, state, and federal facilities, many large supermarkets, some larger businesses and industrial facilities, etc all have backup generators so as long as they could keep fuel in the generators, they could keep the lights on.
But image what would have happened had there been a large EMP induced power failure, and few backup generators were still functioning. Hospitals would have to close within days if not hours, even if fire trucks and police cars were still functioning they’d lose central radio coordination, industrial processes that require power to shut down safely would be apruptly terminated leading to damage and possibly hazardous materials release (oil refineries could be down for months due to improper shutdowns), water pumping/filtration and sewage systems would be offline, no refrigeration means that even if people have food, much of it can’t be stored for long, food cooking becomes impossible for many people cut off from electricity and natural gas, etc.
Short term power problems can be compensated for by generators at key places, but if an EMP damages generators and local building wiring and equipment, it really would be a huge disaster. For a modern example, look what happened at Fukushima – after they lost utility power, they relied on their backup generators to keep cooling pumps running. After the backup generators were destroyed, there was nothing they could do to safely shut down the reactors.
Well, it could conceivably be done, but it’ll take a LOT more tenacity than the “standard homeowner” is likely to muster.
First, you’re going to have to have these preventive measures in place well before a massive CME or EMP occurs. NOAA or NASA may be able to offer a week or two head’s up on a potential CME. But it’s unlikely that even if NORAD or other national defense agency learned of a pending nuclear attack, that they’d be willing and able to share much more information than perhaps an EAS signal telling you to seek shelter in a basement or reinforced area away from windows immediately.
So, you better be getting started this weekend EMP-proofing your home. A Faraday cage enveloping your residence would be a good start. This will be problematic if you watch OTA/sattelite television, listen to radio, or have a cell phone, as none of these will work inside your home once it’s in place. However, no matter how good of a Faraday cage you build around your property, attracting the ire of your neighbors and HOA; anything plugged in to the grid is probably going to get fried anyway. So you would be well served keeping a a radio, lights, medical equipment, and so on unplugged if you’d like to be able to use it afterward.
However, larger items such as your car, refrigerator, and the generator itself might be big enough antennae of their own to not be protected by your Faraday cage, so they should be stored underground. Hopefully there’s still room for you and your loved ones down there in if you need to take cover. No need to worry too much about keeping a spare cell phone or computer though. They’d be pretty much useless for quite some time except for maybe satisfying your Angry Birds or solitaire fix.
But you’ll need to have a heavy duty block and tackle type hoist to retrieve these items afterward, an electric winch will most certainly be useless at this point. Your house wiring may or may not still be usable, but you should probably have plenty of extension cords on hand just in case. Don’t expect a transfer switch set up to work with the generator to still be functional. So you’re bound to be causing a backfeed situation further complicating utility restoration. You’re still going to have to figure out how to provide your family with food and water for the next couple months at least, likewise, as others have pointed out, don’t expect to find gasoline for your car or generator for a long while after the fact. Which leads to the biggest problem you’ll face even after conquering all these obstacles… The Prepper’s Paradox.
By taking such extensive measures to maintain a modest degree of modern convenience after a cataclysmic event, you’ll have painted a huge target on yourself to those not so well prepared. You’ll be besieged with pleas for help to transport people to shelters, medical facilities, share your food, water, and other resources… and that’s just the first day or two. As people deplete the own supplies of food and water, and see that government and charitable assistance are in extremely short supply. These people will face the grim realities, and they’ll become far more desperate… and dangerous! Never mind how expert a marksman you may be, how much of an arsenal of shotguns and assault rifles, and ammunition you may have hoarded… The sound of your generator, your lights, and the scent of food cooking is going to attract scores of people seeking to deprive you of your fortitude by any means necessary.
At least from a CME, you aren’t going to have to worry about your car and appliances (unplugged) getting fried even if a repeat of the 1859 Carrington event occurred; the induced voltages simply won’t be high enough, according to this paper:
100 volts per kilometer, so induced voltages in your house (assuming you turned off the main breaker) or appliances will be much, much lower, only a volt for a 10 meter long wire (even inside of a computer that wouldn’t do any damage, since the lowest voltage ICs still use about 1 volt; malfunction (if on) possibly but not permanent damage, and wires inside of computers are much shorter than 10 meters), so I think you would be pretty safe as long as you had forewarning of the event. Not sure about a nuclear EMP, but if they are similar, even if the nuclear EMP was 10 times, or even 100 times (i.e 10 volts per meter), stronger, it still shouldn’t be a serious problem aside from utility lines; of course, even if your house and appliances are undamaged you still have a total meltdown of the utility grid (and good luck getting more fuel for your generator).