But probably only for a short while, then we would see "damage being routed around."

But for a short while, it would probably appear a bit like those electrical outages back in 2003 and 1965, to name but a few. One failure/service overload leading to the next...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_2003

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965