A Congressional report on the subject projected that within 1 year 9 out of 10 Americans would be dead from starvation, exposure to the elements, medical emergencies, and civil unrest. 90% dead. The estimate on how long it would take to restore the grid is not months but YEARS, if at all. Large transformers have to be ordered 1 year in advance. They are NOT manufactured in the U.S., that's done in Germany and China. If it takes one year to manufacture NOW, how long would it take if those countries were flooded with orders, and would a country like China prefer to sit back and let the U.S. totally collapse and then just walk in and take over, or would they try to get as many transformers to us as possible? Personally I don't think that they would be too concerned about helping us out.
Transportation, food distribution and production, medical care, emergency services, law enforcement, and communications systems would all collapse. Vehicles may or may not work, but if they did work it would only be until gasoline ran out, and regular pumps at the gas station would not work. Basically the only fresh food that you would be able to acquire would be whatever you grow or raise yourself, and whatever you can get hunting. Speaking of hunting, for those who are planning on living from that, how many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, will decide that they need to hunt for game to survive? Think game might become scarce real fast?