The Sun.
The first major solar event that had electrical consequences is known as the Carrington Event.
On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, most notably over the Caribbean; also noteworthy were those over theRocky Mountains that were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning.[4] According to professor Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, "people in the northeastern U.S. could read newspaper print just from the light of the aurora."[5]Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases even shocking telegraph operators.[6] Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire.[7] Some telegraph systems appeared to continue to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.[8]
Another more damaging solar even happened in 1921 causing several fires around the world.
May 13, 1921 - The New York Railroad Storm - The prelude to this particular storm began with a major sunspot sighted on the limb of the sun vast enough to be seen with the naked eye through smoked glass. The spot was 94,000 miles long and 21,000 miles wide and by May 14th was near the center of the sun in prime location to unleash an earth-directed flare. The 3-degree magnetic bearing change among the five worst events recorded ended all communications traffic from the Atlantic Coast to the Mississippi. At 7:04 AM on May 15, the entire signal and switching system of the New York Central Railroad below 125th street was put out of operation, followed by a fire in the control tower at 57th Street and Park Avenue. No one had ever heard of such a thing having happened during the course of an auroral display. The cause of the outage was later ascribed to a 'ground current' that had invaded the electrical system. Railroad officials formally assigned blame for a fire destroyed the Central New England Railroad station, to the aurora. Telegraph Operator Hatch said that he was actually driven away from his telegraph instrument by a flame that enveloped his switchboard and ignited the entire building at a loss of $6,000. Over seas, in Sweden a telephone station was 'burned out', and the storm interfered with telephone, telegraph and cable traffic over most of Europe. Aurora were visible in the Eastern United States, with additional reports from Pasadena California where the aurora reached zenith. [Newspaper Archive]
And from 1989:
A similar flare on March 13, 1989, provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada, blacking out most of the province and plunging 6 million people into darkness for 9 hours; aurora-induced power surges even melted power transformers in New Jersey.
also:
Six million people were affected as they woke to find no electricity to see them through a cold Quebec wintry night. People were trapped in darkened office buildings and elevators, stumbling around to find their way out. Traffic lights stopped working, Engineers from the major North American power companies were worried too. Some would later conclude that this could easily have been a $6 billion catastrophe affecting most US East Coast cities. All that prevented the cascade from affecting the United States were a few dozen capacitors on the Allegheny Network. [Newspaper Archive]
Micro electronics are far more widespread now than they were in 1989 and our grid doesn't have the backup equipment in reserve for a large Carrington size event. While we debate global warming computer models of what might happen, only the US military has shielding on much of its electronic equipment in case of a EMP or large solar storm. Our grid is not prepared for what has happened and what will inevitably happen in the future.
Things you can do.
Sheild your electronics. Mind you saving your cell phone which wouldn't have a working network anyway may be a waste of time. But things like walkie talkies, lap tops, short wave radios and spare medical equipment may be worth considering.
This is a very simple Faraday cage to shield from an emp.
This is simple and capacious
I like this design but doubt that this is really necessary if you have a generator with a pull start and no electronics.
Lined ammo boxes work well as a simple faraday cage as well as one of those popcorn tins that are so popular as gifts during the holidays.
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