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I worried quite a lot about the hurricane, long before it was a reality, but it seemed like a reasonably predictable disaster that could have immense impact on me. But I can't seem to worry about EMP's and asteroids, even though I've read Lucifer's Hammer at least 4 times. My sister and her husband literally bankrupted themselves preparing to survive Y2K, you can't worry seriously about every disaster possible.

It's funny, there are lots of people who worry about low percentage occurrences, like plane crashes and EMP's, that think nothing of highway driving without a seatbelt. My take is it's all about personal control. Uncontrolled events seem far more terrifying to them than events where they appear to have a semblance of control. I knew a guy who simply couldn't be a passenger in a car, he had to be driving, even though he was not a particularly good driver. I know another guy who won't fly, but is a cop. It's all in the perception. He's probably more at risk from just driving around all day, never mind chasing bad guys, but he's "in control".

Going back to being serious on the EMP tangent:

A couple years ago, I watched and read a number of presentations on the subject. One of the bigger fears is another Carrington type event.

The effects would be catastrophic as the current induced would basically fry every piece of electronic equipment in existence. There are something like 3000 or so aircraft flying over the United States during the day. Many are fly-by-wire (no hydraulic controls) and would uncontrollable.

The United States govt. setup a commission to study the whole matter. The conclusion was that the civilian infrastructure has no real protections against a continent wide EMP event (the Carrington event was worldwide). Some estimates are a 90% loss of life within 1 year after the event.

No zombies though... so at least there is that...

I believe just pulling the battery will protect in anticipation of an EMP. But who expects an EMP? Surprise is a major factor in it's success. I'm sure that's what your wife was meaning, that keeping your cellphone and watch in a dead microwave "just in case" would definitely inhibit their use. And make you appear unbalanced to guests.

I scheduled a pickup of some old CRT TV's and computer monitors with the JCIA. I was informed my two dead microwaves I have go out with regular trash. That surprises me given the electronics in a microwave, it doesn't qualify as 'E waste'. I was told to put it out on the curb during regular trash pickup.

I was playing with the idea of turning the microwaves into Faraday cages to prepare for the EMP event the precedes the zombie apocalypse, but my wife objected to the idea.