I guess someones uncle never read or heard about this happening"On March 13, 1989 the entire province of Quebec, Canada suffered an electrical power blackout. Hundreds of blackouts occur in some part of North America every year. The Quebec Blackout was different, because this one was caused by a solar storm!"
This was not the big one, but take a glance at the article.
https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/sun_darkness.html