Solar Activity and Technology

Reliance on Technology

I must confess, I'm a geek. I love technology, and have at different times managed large networks of computers, and even now have an iPhone, iPad, Mac 27", Window 7 in the shed, Macbook Pro in the ute, and internet via wifi in my home and even in my utility truck. I have a large collection of movies (mostly documentaries) I've yet to watch collected on several of my devices, many of which relate to technology and prophecy. I haven't bothered to back them up, my thinking is that I have them in the house and in the car, if one breaks, I still have another copy. Then I read this article: 

Solar storm of 1859

" Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire. Some telegraph systems continued to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies... "

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859

So what would Break - EVERYTHING!

So here I am wondering if a solar flare that powerful can fry the robust telegraph equipment and set fire to the paper used in 1859, what would it do to today's technology?

• The internet would be down. My computers and mobile devices would be cooked. All my stuff would be lost. All my documents and photos that are in the 'cloud' or on my devices would be lost, as well as my home movies, emails, contacts, facebook, even the car would have it's computer fried and would not run!?!?!
• But what about my Bank records, insurance policies, tax records, other peoples criminal records? They'd also be gone. 
• Satellites and communication of all descriptions would be fried. There'd be no GPS any more.
• Supermarkets would soon be empty because all the delivery equipment would be fried.
• There'd be no "law and order" because the cops and emergency workers would have no communication and no transport.
• There'd be no running water, There'd be no refilling your tank with fuel, no electricity, no lights, no cooking, no telephones.

That's a fairly bleack outlook. And how long would things be like this? Who knows. Am I ready? Absolutely not, there's a couple of days worth of tinned food in the cupboard and that's it! Time to do something about it. Oh, and check out this site and others like it: http://spaceweatherphone.com/ | Twitter @solarflarewatch @spaceweather