The tl;dr is much worse than people imagine. The sun goes through cycles of higher and lower activity and we are approaching multiple cyclical peaks (on more than one time scale).

The Carrington Event brought down telegraph wires, melted circuits, etc, ... A large enough mass coronal ejection would create darkness in the sky as matter expelled outward blocked the sun's light... and then cataclysmic damage on earth including things striking us... Not only would some parts of the grid literall get fried/melted but to us it would seem like Armageddon.