” why with all our knowledge should we not be able to rebuild a country that our forefathers built with far far less? “
Because the people with the know how to engineer such things live, largely, in the urban and immediately suburban areas. If they’re dead or afraid, due to social conditions, to go to work things get dicey. The urban and immediately suburban areas will be those that the riots ‘light right up’. And not with electricity.
What percentage of engineers do you think are actively prepping right now? What percentage of those would leave their homes where the preps are to venture into work if that work is near social upheaval? How many would leave those preps and the families they love to do so? If gas was unavailable, how would they get there?
The engineers in 1900 that built up the modern industrial system had access to food distribution networks to feed themselves and their families. There were shipping networks that didn’t depend on the gasoline or diesel engine to work. Those have largely fallen by the wayside.
How many draft horse drawn barges do you see on the erie canal today?
How many oil lamps do those engineers in the firm down the street have, just in case the lights go out?
How many horses do you see tied up out front? If those engineers all live 20 or 30 miles from the office, how do they commute? Collaboration over those distances is impossible without electricity.
Why can’t we rebuild it? We probably can. But not without SIGNIFICANT upheaval and a whole lot of dead people. And, unfortunately, people who are educated in those particular fields don’t live rurally. We will have a whole lot of farmers who survive. Computer engineers? Not many of those I’m afraid.