[PowderMonkey]

"After 4 days without power - most large American cities would be in the MadMax Zone"

Optimist. I give it one night. However, the Washington D.C. metro region was severely affected by last summer's massive storm, that knocked out power for many suburban neighborhoods for weeks. Nobody chimped out because of the isolation imposed by downed trees, and it was simply too hot to even breathe. 102 degrees at 90% humidity, and the air dead still, for the duration of the power outage. An urban environment would be a different story. Chimp city after 24 hours.

[Old Sarge]

"After 4 days without power - most large American cities would be in the MadMax Zone"
Optimist. I give it one night.

Folks, it's worse.

We will not have three days of Walmart stockpiles to feed the hordes and keep them sated.

We will not have a week of normality before the Gibsmedats come boiling out of the urban kraals.

We will have only HOURS.

1965 - Los Angeles - the arrest of a young black man in Watts incites a crowd, which spawns a riot, within one hour of the arrest;
1968 - across America - the death of Martin Luther King touches off rioting in several cities within hours of the media broadcast;
1977 - New York - the grid goes offline at 9:30PM, the looting starts around 11PM;
1992 - Miami - Hurricane Andrew’s winds haven’t even died down before the malls are ransacked;
1992 - Los Angeles - the verdict is announced for the Rodney King Trial, and almost immediately, the city burns;
2005 - New Orleans - the looting started even before the storm made landfall;
2011 - London - a protest over a slain gangbanger turns violent and within four hours, Greater London descends into mayhem;
2012 - Long Island, NY - in the wake of Frankenstorm, enterprising looters dressed as powerline repairmen sneak past the martial law cordon and pillage, with 24 hours of the storm;

Hours, people - not days, hours.

[MHGinTN]

The very first thing to do if/when an EMP strike or grid attack occurs is to fill water containers. The water supply is pumped into tanks which send water via gravity generated pressure. What is in the tanks is what will be available even when the pumps to refill the tanks no longer operate, so fill water containers FIRST. I have bladder tanks for my bathtubs, to store potable water ...

[ansel12]

Optimist. I give it one night.

Nonsense, the Southwestern US and Tijuana just went through it in 2011.

[bgill]

On the coldest day of the year a couple years ago they decided to cut electricty for half an hour in random locations supposedly to save from a full meltdown. Problem was when they turned it back on several transformers blew so that put people out of power for hours. In other areas they simply forgot to turn it back on. If there was so much incompetence on a local area, imagine what it’d be like in a major grid failure.