I agree. There were articles and documentaries about 20 years ago that I remember featuring these sort of events. The continent affected would take 20-30 years to rebuild its electricity grid.
In general, people are appallingly bad at weighing up long-term vs short-term stuff, both in terms of risks and benefits. It's even worse when, as you say, there's no definite deadline or it doesn't directly affect those who can do something about it.
My understanding is that we actually don't have much of a warning (under an hour), since a CME has to reach the satellite at the Lagrange point between Earth and the Sun for us to know it's about to hit Earth. According to the article below, this includes power companies, but I remain skeptical that there's enough organisation in place to shut down the North American, European or Asian grids in 15 minutes.
Powerful X-class solar flare slams Earth, triggering radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean (www.space.com) angielski