The Event causes the failure of every electronic device in the town.

When Steve Flint returns to his home town of Dillon to visit his elderly parents, he only expects to be there for a few days. His plans are quickly shattered when an unexplained event causes the failure of every electronic device in the town. In a matter of days, the people of Dillon are exposed to how fragile the systems are that they take for granted and how quickly social norms begin to disintegrate. Resources, relationships and even moral code are tested to the limit. Initially, it is a general reluctance to accept that life-support systems that had come to be accepted as normal could in fact be so delicate. That early period of denial prevented action from being taken.

The theory of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP).

Suddenly, the ageing Vietnam War veteran Jimmy Spears doesn’t seem as crazy as many people had assumed him to be as he built a life around concepts of self-sufficiency and minimal dependence on state support structures. It was Jimmy who first offered the theory of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) as the cause of the dramatic changes - a theory many people refused to accept.

The risk of going back.

If things are bad in Dillon, Steve can only imagine how much worse they will be in the city where his wife, Abby, waits for his return. In spite of a barrage of advice telling him not to risk going back, Steve knows he has no choice but to try to save his wife.

Sometimes, love supersedes even such things as the fear of violence and disease.