You're handwaving a lot of serious effects of a powerful solar storm. The biggest issue by far is the power grid and depending on severity it can go from "we ha

You're handwaving a lot of serious effects of a powerful solar storm. The biggest issue by far is the power grid and depending on severity it can go from "we had a small spike that was easily absorbed by the network" to "the cables melted and set fire to everything around them". The worst case scenario might be that your power grid is down and nobody can intervene because every intervention site is on fire. Big cities would be particularly affected since they don't do well for long without power.