The Carrington Event to which you are undoubtedly referring occurred in 1859.
We would, unlike in a nuclear EMP attack, have enough warning to shut down critical infrastructure and prevent many problems. People would have to do without electricity for a few days at most, and that would be bad but not catastrophic.
A wild card would be the nuclear reactors, both here and abroad - I don’t know if they can just be shut down, especially the cooling aspect. If not then we need hardened reserve generators in place at every nuke plant, with fuel for a minimum of a month. That, for every single plant worldwide, is orders of magnitude cheaper than a single meltdown anywhere.
Forgive me for getting the date wrong. I knew it took place somewhere in the mid 1800’s. We can only guess what this would do as our technology has become vulnerable to events like that. What I am saying that we have more to worry about than man made EMP. Never underestimate the power of nature.