All of the things you are mentioning are profoundly complex and require infrastructure and secure transportation systems (you're going to need parts for that generator).
Consider all he abandoned, bullet-scarred office buildings to be found throughout the Middle East and in places like Kosovo and Bosnia. Those were once new, thriving communities (the people who erected those buildings didn't do so for target practice!)
I have only to make a trip to the local grocery store or the local Walmart to become quite aware of how close this nation is to savagery.
The scenario that is being described in this article has already happened in 1959 - an event known as the "Carrington Event" ... if it happened today you would literally find yourself in the Dark Ages tomorrow.
Sorry...1859... what’s a century between Freepers!?!? :O
Some of us can build a generator without relying on store-bought stuff.
Some of us have lived as mountain men for years at a time, at a mid-1800s level of technology.
I know for a fact that I can do it, because I have.
/johnny