Possibly. A geomagnetic storm in 1989 wiped out power to Quebec and subsequent improvements were made to prevent another mass outage [0], but that was a relativ

Possibly. A geomagnetic storm in 1989 wiped out power to Quebec and subsequent improvements were made to prevent another mass outage [0], but that was a relatively small solar flare compared to those in the past, which sparked fires and blew fuses. A storm that can cause arcing like that most certainly result in a lot of damage even on a modern grid. In 2003 October, a stronger storm than 1989's hit the Earth, resulting in a lot less power outages (presumably the grid was protected better than the past), but resulted in damages to many orbiting satellites. [1] It's safe to assume that thanks to GOES, SOHO, and other observation and forecasting systems, we'll have enough time to respond to an incoming CME, which would probably result in preemptive blackouts to isolate and reduce the effective capture area of the grid to reduce currents upon impact, but little can be done to protect satellites in orbit, which would be the biggest impact to civilization should a large portion of satellites fail. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm#cite_note-HQ_solarstorm-9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1989_geomagnetic_storm#c... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_solar_storms,_2003 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_solar_storms,_2003