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Wyoming might look a lot like New England by early 2001 in that fortified communities exist in a sea of land dominated by marauders. Howling Wilderness alludes to this idea, and Kota supports the idea with observations about towns with machine tools and extensive extraction operations. Provided the operations can be kept supplied with food, they can make important contributions to the recovery of the nation. One could really have fun with a sourcebook devoted to Wyoming.
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Complicating things is the fact that it's not the best agricultural area on the planet, but great grazing country, in much of the state. In the eastern part of the state it may be confused with heavily armed marauders, mostly on horseback, mingled in with people who've cut loose from settlements to follow their cattle and other animals -- also on horseback, also armed to the teeth, and probably also prone to a bit of opprotunistic robbery if it means the difference between surviving the winter or not. Of course, circa 2000, everyone is still making things up as they go along, for the most part, and so everything's probably a fluid mess.
Further west where the mountains provide better water, fortified towns or valleys would make a lot of sense. There's some sort of petroleum in the area, if I recall correctly (natural gas?), which could further add wrinkles to a complicated situation.
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Does anybody know what parts of a hydroelectric facility would be damaged by EMP?
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I think just the computerized controls and such. Wouldn't do anything to the turbines in and of itself, but damage might occur from the controls going off line abruptly. The Howling Wilderness section on the SE USA, talking about MilGov trying to get the Tennessee Valley Authority back up and running talks a little about how GDW saw that issue developing -- human abandonment and neglect over a couple years was a bigger issue than the nukes themselves for the various damns in the TVA area.