"Its just electricity. Its only been widely available for the last 60-80 years. You can actually live without it. Even the Internet has only been around for about 15 years."

I doubt that it would be as 'easy' as it seems. Everything from manufacturing to transportation to medicine to education would mostly come to a screeching halt. We have become almost insanely dependent on electricity.

How well would trucking companies run without a computer system? Most phone systems are electronic -- it's hard to find an old phone that doesn't. How fast would they be made without electricity?

Most of the railroad signals and switches are operated electronically from main dispatch locations (here in the PNW, all the mainline tracks are operated from Texas).

Hospital equipment and medical records are mostly electronic.

American public schools would be paralyzed (worse than they already are).

It would be a good thing most vehicles wouldn't be operating, because even a small city would be paralyzed without working traffic lights.

Huge buildings... no power, no lights, no elevators, non-operating electronic locks, even the toilets flush electronically.

Stores couldn't operate because many people don't know how to add, subtract, figure tax, or make change on their own.

No burglar alarms, no police communication, no phones to call police. No lights in the jails and prisons.

Is it winter? Electric heat not available. Electronic ignition in many heat sources, not working. Pellet stoves, not working.

No, it's not as simple as you might think. We wouldn't go back 50-80 years, we would be back in the Middle Ages. But even then, people knew how to do things, to make do, to grow food, to make things by hand. Most of that knowledge is long gone from most of the industrialized populations.

Some people wouldn't even be able to get into their cars to use them as shelter because the little button on the key fob wouldn't work.

The first 50 years of electricity we still had knowledge, useful skills and experience, now most of that is gone. Turn off the power and you'll have turned off the thin veneer of what we refer to as 'civilization', because most of what we call civilization is just technology.

Sue