Emerge -u system hosed my init scripts, system dead

[hackmeister]

I did an emerge -u system last night and walked away to do some things. Came back and it appeared the emerge had completed and there was a message saying power down. I did so, waited a minute or so and powered the system back up. It appears none of init scripts are found and the system just hangs. I get a message along the these lines:
rc1.init files not found....retry in 5 minutes
rc.2.init files not found....retry in 5 minutes
I'm at work right now and I'll post the exact messages when I get home
This sounds like some of the initialization scripts got wiped out.
Has anyone ever experienced anything like this?
_________________
Patrick Davila
http://www.thelinuxlink.net/lvlinux - Lehigh Valley Linux User's Group