On Our own said:
Please bear with me here, it is clear that I know absolutely nothing about electronics - if the pulse was a singular event would all non-connected electronics be fried?? Like a basic lamp. If it wasn't plugged in so the surge was only that carried via magnetic wave wouldn't the wiring survive?? I can see anything with chips would be toast, but what about more basic electronics?
Anything with Integrated Circuits (also called IC's or chips) would most likely be damaged. Electrical items without without these circuits would probably be fine. Chips (IC's) are very sensitive to voltage spikes. Most items like your common (non-touch control, etc.) lamps, basic toasters, and such would not be harmed if not plugged into an outlet.
Things without IC's that are plugged in
may suffer damage because the electrical lines will act like large antennas and collect a lot of the energy, passing it along to anything connected to the grid.
However most things containing IC's, which these days includes almost every household appliance (and some toasters), would need to be repaired or replaced. This is due to the circuit board traces acting like small antennas and imparting a voltage spike into the chips.
There is a lot of speculation, since we have never actually seen this type of event during the "electronic" age. Although a high altitude nuclear test in the south pacific, 900 miles away, did cause three hundred street lights to fail, television sets and radios to malfunction, burglar alarms to go off and power lines to fuse. On Kauai, the EMP shut down telephone calls to the other islands by burning out the equipment used in a microwave link. The EMP pulse that hit Hawaii was relatively weak by what may be caused by weapons in a modern nuclear arsenal.
