In 1859 a solar storm, a geomagnetic event, sent a gale of charged particles through the vacuum of outer space and towards Earth. This storm was so powerful that it knocked out the only form of telecommunication that existed at the time, the telegraph. Such powerful storms occur on average once every five hundred years. If such a storm were to happen today, it would knock out the Internet, GPS, and most forms of broadcasting.
The last time this happened, the world was a simpler place. People ate food that grew nearby. Financial markets were not highly leveraged. Nobody expected to be able to deal with the kind of complexity we rely upon today.
If GPS goes, so will air and ship travel. Tropical fruits could no longer be part of a North American or European diet. Where would we get coffee or chocolate? Tourism will vanish for a while.
So will international banking and most trade. If the Internet goes, people will keep trying to log on to find out what’s going on. The organizations and systems the Internet replaced would have to be resurrected. That would take some time. During this period of crisis, it would not be unusual for other, bigger crisis to emerge. A Perfect Storm of problems, which could combine to amplify the sum effect and result in real catastrophe.
When famine occurs, it doesn’t take as long as you might assume to lose a lot of people. It’s a matter of weeks until the tipping point is reached. And then bodies start piling up, usually on street corners, left there during the night. We don’t have much experience of this in the West, but in the East they’ve had plenty.
One would have to be foolish to think that such an event will never occur. Of course it’s not a case of “if” but “when.” So what are we doing to prepare for this day?
In a simpler era, amateur radio operators offered some form of mass communications during emergencies, but if this happens, I think we’re going to be looking at mayhem. Most of us no longer own a radio, much less a short wave radio. I used to be able to send and receive morse code, but that was a long time ago, and today my telegraph key lies moldering in some Midwestern antique store.
I do, however, still remember the morse code for SOS.
geezersabroad 
How long did the storm last? Maybe a recurrence will just be a kick start to reviving less dependence on electronic communication for entertainment. Maybe people will go outside and notice nature and say, hey this is cool!
Bring it on I need some action liven up the place a bit
It’s potentially much worse than you describe. Per Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/solar-flare-this-week-illuminated-power-grid-vulnerability/):
“In the worst-case scenario, the stockpile of spare transformers would fall far short of replacement needs. Urban centers across the continent would be without power for many months or even years, until new transformers could be manufactured and delivered from Asia.”
The world is littered with nuclear power plants that are prepared for about a month with no power. After that, they run out of fuel for their emergency diesel generators, and face meltdowns.
I read an article a while back that claimed that the cost for the U.S. to protect all of the vulnerable transformers would be about $1 billion. Of course, this would need to be done in other countries with nuclear power plants as well. To the best of my knowledge, there’s no serious discussion taking place anywhere about this.
I wonder if the water shortage from EMP would come down to strapping on the gili suit just to go down to the lake to get water . Let’s live in things up around here and get heading for those hills