A new federal audit is raising significant questions about how the government would respond if the electric grid of 24,000 substations and 430,000 miles of transmission cable is disabled by a nuclear attack or solar flare.

The Government Accountability Office, in an audit started in 2014, found that despite congressional and industry concerns of a grid melt down caused by an electromagnetic pulse hit from a nuclear attack or a geomagnetic disturbance from a solar flare like the near hit earth in July 2012, nobody has been put in charge of responding in a disaster.