The reason why "The Road" is a better read is because it's author, Cormac McCarthy wasn't writing a post apocalyptic survival guide. Like many great writers, he uses scenarios to write about the human condition.

McCarthy isn't really writing about the end of the world from a practical POV, the problem with books like "One Second after" and "Patriots" is the limited imagination of the writers, they do write from only the practical POV.

There's another post apocalyptic book out, can't recall the title but it's premise is that a biological agent is released that eats hydrocarbons, it's supposed to be used to clean up oil spills but it starts attacking every plastic product and hydrocarbon byproduct in it's path. Similar results as the EMP scenario. There's no real story, just a collection of anecdotal info that the authors obviously collected along the way of doing whatever research they did. There are parts of it that seem specifically contrived just to allow the authors to show off some obscure bit of trivia, like how some fighter pilots choose whether to eat before a long flight...it's interesting in it's own way but you can't sustain a story with trivia.

Most of the post apocalyptic stuff written nowadays reminds me of the really bad early Ian Fleming stuff, where the descriptions of spy stuff carried by Bond, James Bond and his predilection for shaken martinis substituted for plot and character.