Thank you for your intelligent reply and no that is not what I'm asking. I will repeat it for the fifth time, This Thread is not about EMP caused by a nuclear attack this is about the Carrington event of the 1850s. It was a major solar flare and yes it's common knowledge that it did wipe out Telegraph systems, the only Electronics we had. If we had cars would they run? Would our radios work if there were radios then? In other words to ask my question in a different way, would a solar event like the Carrington event affect our Electronics today as advanced as they are or would we be totally unaffected. Would we be wiped out like telegraph was.
Same answer applies.
Since that happened in the 1850's and the technology to understand it/measure it didn't exist, science would be trying to recreate it based on recorded history, and maybe some biological data left behind.
Recorded history of the event is probably a bit sus as there would be a lack of knowledge on the subject at the time.
So, using what we know now, and using large computers that can run lots of large simulations quickly, they can probably get pretty close to recreating it, then deciding how it would impact current infrastructure.
Since we do not have control over an event like this, the best we could do is guess at what the next one would be like, and design accordingly. I'm positive that the sun could throw out something large enough that anything we tried to do as mortals to protect against it would be laughed off.
In other words, it's going to happen again. "How big" is the question.
We've had smaller events, and there has been impact. Utilities/military/government/industry has learned from those. Some infrastructure gets upgraded. Some infrastructure gets isolated/broken up so an event wouldn't impact everything.
Case in point, look at how the national power grid is designed. It's not one huge interconnected grid. It's broken up into smaller chunks with DC interties between them that can prevent some issues. You may absolutely see large chunk of the country get blacked out, but there are means in place to keep it from spreading.
Ways of shunting that extra impulse energy to ground exist. Same thing is used to protect against lightning strikes.
IT infrastructure uses fiber, as I mentioned above, so an event might impact the copper wire parts of the system, like POTS or cable TV, but the truth is that those copper links are only "last mile". Damn near everything is fiber now. The old AT&T/CLEC switching centers were mostly built to be survivable in the event of a nuclear blast. I know, you are not asking about nuclear, but the same principals apply.
The way the internet works, it doesn't rely on just single routers/single paths, there's lot of interesting topology involved that helps isolate faults (usually). Sure, there would be some impact, but the 'system' has quite a lot of capability to reroute traffic around problems.
So, telephone and internet might absolutely be impacted, but it may be just regional. Some areas might be out for a long time, but it would eventually get restored.
Power would be the big concern. But while the system is fragile, restoring parts of the system would be possible, and might happen fairly fast. I think the issue/concern would be "how fast".
Again, microgrids, local renewable energy, all those things are good. I had a coworker that was one of the first Tesla owners I knew. They had the car, plus a substantial solar array at their home, plus a large battery system. Most of the time she would charge her car off stored solar power at night. During the day, the battery system would recharge, plus have enough excess energy to supply her home. That was a good solution that didn't rely on a gasoline pump working.
As for "internet" and big data, I think the bigger issue is that everyone wants it for free/cheap. Getting cheap/free means you take some risks.
Any good data center would have redundancy. Not only redundant local systems, but geographically redundant systems. We use a lot of Google and Amazon hosting at work, as many do. You can buy different levels of service.
You can get the cheap "It's in that data center over there"
Or you can get the more expensive, "It's in that data center over there, plus one in the midwest, one in Canada, one in the Southeast, one in Japan, etc.
But I'm sure someone will come up with some imaginary event where all that will fail and the only thing that survives is some guy who buried supplies in his backyard. That's usually the way these discussions go.
Personally, I think I'd prefer to check out at that point. I don't necessarily be part of a world that functions that way.
