Attack Disables Electrical Substation in North Carolina

[Chance]

From The Wall Street Journal:

Residents of Moore County, N.C., could be without power for much of the week as technicians scramble to repair two substations damaged by what authorities said was a targeted act of vandalism.

About 33,000 customers of Duke Energy, which provides power to the region, were still without electricity Monday afternoon, out of the approximately 45,000 initially affected by the vandalism over the weekend.

Two substations were disabled by gunfire Saturday night. Authorities don’t have any suspects and haven’t determined a motive for the attack. The two substations were located approximately 10 miles apart, according to Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks.

Most customers will likely not have power back until Thursday, he said, although some homes may get the lights on within the next 24 hours.

The gunfire destroyed some of the equipment in the substations which will have to be replaced, he said.

There have been a handful of attacks like these over the years, but this might be the first one that's disabled service at scale.

[HCM]

From The Wall Street Journal:



There have been a handful of attacks like these over the years, but this might be the first one that's disabled service at scale.

This has been posted / discussed in the “shooting incidents in the news thread” but it might better for a mod to move those posts here.

PS: the memes have already started.

[Guerrero]

Handwaving Freakoutery had an interesting take:

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/moore-co...metcalf-sniper

[Andy T]

Interesting youtube post.

[Stephanie B]

Aren’t those transformers oil-cooled? Where did the oil go? And is it still PCB-based stuff?

[Clusterfrack]

Bigots! The attack is a hate crime against Trans-formers. No Cis-formers were damaged.

[Tamara]

Handwaving Freakoutery had an interesting take:

https://hwfo.substack.com/p/moore-co...metcalf-sniper

My eyes can’t roll hard enough.

[fatdog]

Get ready for copycats. This was too easy and too successful.

We are headed for the era of D550 armor plated walls around substations.

[BWT]

Dude, the Russians don’t need to attack us.

They just need to shoot a transformer and we’ll collapse into a civil war.

Go down to Walmart and get a 10/22 and it’ll be like shots fired on Ft. Sumter.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

In San Antonio, when it rained the power went out. So hardening for gun fire - fat chance. There was big installation right on a well traveled street, near where we lived, building a great wall around that?

Having guards on these substations, take thousands of folks spending most of their time taking a nap.