Thousands of homes were left in the dark after four electrical substations in western Washington were vandalized on Christmas Day, local authorities said on Sunday, adding that it was unknown if the incidents were connected.
The attacks on Sunday cut power to more than 14,000 utility customers in south Pierce County, near Tacoma, the Pierce County Sheriff's Office said.
The burglaries were reported at two substations belonging to Tacoma Public Utilities and two belonging to Puget Sound Energy.
Deputies saw forced entry into the fenced-in area at all four substations, with equipment vandalized but "nothing had been taken" from the substations, the department said.
"At this time deputies are conducting the initial investigation. We do not have any suspects in custody. It is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems," the sheriff's office said in a statement.
'Targeted' attack on substations:Outages in North Carolina county could last days
GRAPHICS:Locations of North Carolina power substations attacked by gunfire
Nationwide threat: North Carolina substations attack a 'wake-up call' in latest infrastructure threat
Authorities have not said what type of vandalism was involved but a fire was reported at one of the substations belonging to Puget Sound Energy.
More than 1,100 residents were still without power Monday morning after most power was restored by Sunday night, according to Tacoma Public Utilities and Puget Sound Energy's outage maps.
"We know this incident has impacted many people’s holiday celebrations, and our crews are working hard to get power safely restored to all customers as quickly as we can," Tacoma Public Utilities said Sunday night.
The four attacks follow warnings and advisories from federal officials of possible domestic terrorism attacks on the U.S. power grid. Similar attacks have been reported in Washington, Oregon and North Carolina since November.
A large outage in North Carolina that began on Dec. 3 cut power to tens of thousands of people and took days to repair. Officials had called the outage a "targeted" attack.
Days before the incident, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin through its National Terrorism Advisory System warning that “lone offenders and small groups” may attack various targets, including critical infrastructure.
In January, DHS warned that domestic extremists have been developing “credible, specific plans” to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020.
Oregon Public Broadcasting and KUOW-FM in Seattle reported earlier this month that numerous power companies had reported six separate attacks on electrical substations in Washington and Oregon in the previous weeks.
Contributing: The Associated Press
Source link
