In September, of 1859, during a major solar maximum like we are entering into this year a huge solar flare hit the Earth. Northern lights were seen as far south as Havana Cuba and as far north as Santiago Chile. Telegraphs, the only real high tech of the day arced and sparked for days and newspapers could be read outdoors at midnight in Baltimore from the light of the aurora.
What would happe...n to today if a similar solar flare would hit the Earth in todays high tech era? National Geographic ran a good article on the Carrington effect and what would happen to our high tech civilization? http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
If the same occurred today the results could be catastrophic. Today's high tech world is terribly vulnerable to disruptions to the communications and transportation system and if the electrical grids over wide areas was smashed, by a large solar flare, then the damage could literaly, bring about a Dark Age, as the concentric systems our modern civilization collapsed in the dark and cold.
A year ago I was at a FEMA briefing and one of the speakers told me they were concerned the government wouldn't be able to survive for more then four to six weeks without modern communication which would be very degraded if not utterly smashed by a large 1859 level solar flare hit on Earth. The satelites used for the global communication would be destroyed by such a solar flare, and even worse most of the electrical; grid would be down, maybe for weeks maybe months maybe for longer (and that is if the systems could even be gotten back on line without massive repairs.
According to the FEMA speaker I took out to lunch and plied with lubricants he was very worried that in six months to a year some parts of the country would have taken 80 to 90 % or more casualties. When thinking of how dependent on transortation to provide just in time deliveries of food, purify our water and provide all the other supplies and life support needed to keep our mega cities population alive, I have to agree it would be awfully bad in any large urbanized area.
