So I can say that any other significant power collapse will “cause hundreds of millions of deaths”? The effects described sound pretty much to what happened in New Orleans during the hurricane. It’s hysterical hyperbole. If electricity dependant infrastructure collapses, without the possibility of rebuilding within forseeable time, folks will have to live like they did before everything was electrified.
An EMP is serious business, but this ridiculous hyperbole diminishes the seriousness of this issue.
With no help coming. With no police, no radios, no transportation, no anything.
Food will be gone in a few days, clean water soon thereafter. Dysentery, cholera, malnutrition and survival of the fittest will follow on after that.
There is no sustainable way to go back to the 1800s without a massive depopulation of the US.
It's not going to happen the moment the bomb goes off, but the country won't look the same 3 weeks later.