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For someone who "works in the field" you have some misconceptions about EMP.

"Contrary to popular Internet legend, EMP isnâ€™t this â€œdestroy all thing electronic and electricalâ€. heck, if it were, you wouldnâ€™t survive (your very heartbeat relies on electrical impulses). EMP may disrupt something but it doesnâ€™t destroy it unless it is connected to very long wires that can absorb the pulse over very long distances. EMP lasts a few milliseconds and it over. It doesnâ€™t hang around forever like those on the Internet claim. It is a very brief electrical pulse that is actually very weak."

Let me quote a few things from this excellent page on the Russian EMP tests:

Other known effects of Test 184 were that it knocked out a major 1000-kilometer (600-mile) underground power line running from Astana (then called Aqmola), now the capital city of Kazakhstan, to the city of Almaty. Some fires were reported. In the city of Karaganda, the EMP started a fire in the city's electrical power plant, which was connected to the long underground power line. The shielded electrical cable was buried 3 feet (90 cm.) underground.

Note it was a "shielded electrical cable".

The geomagnetic-storm-like E3 component of the EMP (also called MHD-EMP) can easily penetrate into the ground. The E3 component of the Test 184 detonation (caused by the movement of the Earth's magnetic field) began rising immediately after the detonation, but did not reach its peak until 20 seconds after the detonation. The E3 pulse then decayed over the next minute or so. The E3 component only affects equipment connected to long electrical conductors.

Note, the E3 impulse from that test lasted 80,000 milliseconds. ;-)

If the United States W49 warhead used for the Starfish Prime test had been used in Test 184, the E3 component would have been more than 5000 nT/min in the Karaganda region. According to recent studies, a disturbance in the present-day United States of 4800 nT/min would likely damage about 365 large transformers in the U.S. power grid, and would leave about 40 percent of the U.S. population without electrical power for as long as 4 to 10 years due to the loss of large transformers that would have to be custom-built (many in other countries, especially if power was not available for the two U.S. plants that are able to make these transformers).

Now, imagine several such weapons (or even larger ones) detonated within a few nanoseconds of each other to blanket the entire US.

While the major risk may be solar storms, nuclear EMP is a very real threat - especially if done by sneak attack.