https://abc11.com/moore-county-powe...urce=ground.news&utm_medium=referral

One of the talking heads ponders if it was in protest of a larger drag queen show (which was able to continue in case you care).

How much sophistication does it take to know what to shoot on a power substation?



Gunfire takes out power substations in Moore Co.; prompts State of emergency, curfew, closed schools

Sunday, December 4, 2022 8:36PM



MOORE COUNTY, N.C. (WTVD) -- Thousands of people in Moore County are still without power after the sheriff said someone attacked two power substations Saturday.

According to the sheriff's office, the outages began just after 7 p.m. Saturday when the two Duke Energy stations were intentionally targeted with gunfire.

Approximately 38,000 people lost power and were forced to deal with the freezing temperatures Overnight Saturday, and will again overnight Sunday.

Sheriff Ronnie Fields said the Town of Southern Pines is completely without power. According to the latest census data, the population is about 16,000 people.



The county has declared a state of emergency and opened a shelter in Carthage that can accommodate 250 people.

Moore County Schools announced Sunday afternoon that all schools will be closed Monday due to widespread power outages. Officials say an announcement will be made Monday evening to inform parents and staff of schools status on Tuesday.

Sheriff Ronnie Fields said the mass outage is currently believed to have been caused by a criminal act.

During a new conference Sunday afternoon Sheriff Fields announced, the FBI and state authorities have joined the investigation into the Moore County power outages, and a countywide curfew has been issued from 9:00 p.m. to 5 a.m.

He said his deputies are looking into whether there's a link to a drag show Saturday night in Moore County, but there are no immediate connections to the drag show.

Sheriff Fields said as of Sunday, no individual or group has stepped forward to acknowledge responsibility.

"It's a very serious situation," Fields said. "We're living in some challenging times. We're dealing with things we never thought we'd be dealing with."

Drag Show in Moore County continued Saturday night despite mass power outage


The show went on for an audience attending a drag show in Moore County during a mass power outage Saturday night.

Two substations were heavily damaged during the incident. Duke Energy says they will need to bring in special equipment and crews to complete the repairs.

The Duke Energy Outage Map initially reported that power was expected to be restored by 10 p.m. Sunday, but then a Duke Energy representative said Sunday afternoon that the company was unsure when the power would be restored and it may not be until Thursday due to the unusual nature of the outage.

Public safety officials in Moore County asked those affected in a tweet Saturday to refrain from calling 911 to report a power outage.


Here's how the county is responding so far

Moore County is operating under a state of emergency
Curfew in place from 9:00 p.m. until 5:00 a.m.
Moore County Schools (MCS) are closed Monday
The school system issued statement on the school closing:
"Moore County has suffered a major power outage affecting most of the county. Although some schools in the northern and central part of the county may have power, all school operations are impacted by this power outage. Therefore, all schools will be closed tomorrow, Monday, December 5, for students and staff. An announcement will be made tomorrow evening to inform parents and staff of the status of schools for Tuesday."

Businesses are unable to open, leaving owners and workers in limbo.

Red Cross shelter opened at 4 pm

Moore County shelter operated by the Red Cross is located at the Moore County Sports Complex; the Recreation Center 155 Hillcrest Park Lane in Carthage. For more information you can call 910-947-6317.

Moore County Transportation Services will operate to transport clients scheduled for dialysis, chemotherapy, and radiation treatments only.

All other Moore County Operations are cancelled with a plan to expand operations that will function on Tuesday, December 6.

With traffic lights inoperable, Fire Chief Mike Cameron told ABC News the fire department has received numerous calls for accidents at intersections. Firefighters have also been responding to more than the usual carbon monoxide alarms as people turn to alternative forms of heat. There have also been numerous medical calls, particularly from people with home oxygen or oxygen generators.

Anyone with information about what happened is asked to contact the Moore County Sheriff's Office at 910-947-2931.

bummer

Yeah but the interesting question seems to be drunken idiots or terrorists...

I'm a firm believer that EVERY household should have backup heat for winter outages (in this case criminal behavior). I have a heat pump for my main heat but I also have a propane heater for backup. If shît get to bad then I have a wood stove in the shop that I can always for up.

If this truly was in response to a fàgqueen event then I most definitely disapprove. I fuçking hat fàgqueens and all they stand for but putting a city with thousands of people out of power is beyond criminal in my opinion. There are too many people that depends on electric for medical equipment and no kid should go to bed freezing, period!

I can’t imagine a bs show like that in Moore County.

Agree
I lived in Utah many many years ago and it was reported that a Bird flew into a substation in Idaho and knocked the power down in 4 States.
The power was out for well over 24 hours.

I had a Little 4000 watt Colman Generator and gas on hand.
We fired that little generator up and ran extension cords to several neighbors for their refrigerators so we did not loose our food.
We had a New Born across the street from us and the guy was an Electrician we ran a cord across the street so he could put a fan on the baby.

He did the calc's and said we could put one more Refrigerator on that Generator but we had run out of Extension cords.

For some reason my neighbors started liking me after that outage.

I have always had Generators on hand and try and keep gas on hand to feed them.
As well as some food and water.

Here we are worried about our infrastructure being attacked by an EMP or something sophisticated but little did we know that Bubba with his 30-30 was able to easily take out the grid with a couple of rounds. 😂

Wouldn't it be simpler to just kneecap the drag q u e e r s and not mess with the power grid?

This^^^^^^

And then the political discussions start on sniper rifles.

Lucky shot or did someone with the knowledge of the station who knew just where to hit?

Still a sad deal all around.

Duke power is saying it might be Thursday before the power is back on for some. I've read that spare parts for the grid are in short supply... given our current general supply chain gaps this could become a bigger deal.

The looters will see this as a black Sunday event.

It was just a [bleep] doing [bleep] things id bet

Why the hell is [bleep] censored here? What if i was writing about jane goodall or some national geographic special?

People are such wimps. We lose power here for anywhere from a few hours to a few days 3-4 times a year. Was out for 5 days this past April when a storm dumped 14" of wet snow that brought down trees and power lines across several counties. Not a big deal.

Probably some environmental protest a la antifa.

Where is FEMA…..where is the National Guard?

That was what I heard on the radio in the July 2016 flood in WV. After only 18 hours.

It’s amazing people can’t go a day.

We lose power here frequently. We’ve had a generator and it runs everything but I gotta start it and keep it fueled so we decided that it makes sense as we get older to make life easier so we’ll be getting an automatic standby propane generator soon.

Right? Like “Do you think Jane Goodall ever [bleep] any of those [bleep] ?

Two substations were targeted at the same time, and disabled by gunfire? There is either a lot more to this story, or it is bullshiit.

That's the real story. There's no evidence given for a drag show connection.

x
pedaling Paul would take it personally...

False flag for more gun control. POS will be along calling for it.

Fwiw…..

A long time ago, I rec’d a phone call from the General Manager of a mine/mill/smelter complex. He told me I would soon have a visitor from an alphabet agency who wanted to ask me a number of questions regarding site security.

He showed up the next day and we talked for a couple of hours. He wanted to know how to disable a large complex like we had and he focused on the underground mining operations.

He seemed to know very little, but he asked interesting questions. He thought the best way to disable our mine would be to disrupt our power supply and cause the pumps to shut down and cause the mine to flood. Not so, we had had a long labor strike and our incoming power lines were dynamited. Lost power for a week and the mine did indeed flood. We got the power on, dried out the mcc’s and motors…. Replaced fluids in the crushers and got the mine up and running in 3-4 days.

He was disappointed and told me that was not long enough.

Anyway, upshot was that two targets were of interest to him. The first was to disable the hoisting equipment and the second was to damage the our power transformers. Both the hoisting mechanism and the transformers were not “off the shelf” items. Loss either could cause a multiple month long shutdown….. maybe longer.

He left pleased.

You guys are right about the transformers…. Replacing large transformers take quite a while and they are generally not easily repaired and restored to service.

Dunno about Bubba with a .30-30, but a .300 Win Mag or maybe a .30-378 with some black tip milsurp AP bullets takes the potential for transformer damage up an order of magnitude or three!

Whatever they used probably had a suppressor so the neighbors didn't notice the shots

Probably just some idiot with a beef against Duke Energy.

Very little.

Worry not.

The FBI is on the case now.

I've been saying for years that our power grid is over of our biggest weaknesses. Terrorists could do a hell of a lot of damage with a little knowledge and the right tools. Lol what they did on 9/11.
It's long been known replacement parts substations and transformers are hard to get promptly. Frankly I'm surprised it's taken this long for it to happen. If it was idiots doing it then congrats, you just showed the terrorists how to do the same

Why?

They find a piece of string with a loop tied in it?

I have always expected the same with forest fires.

Easy peasy stuff for a pissed off dude or dudette to light a match...

We drove to town yesterday for breakfast and a little Christmas shopping but there was no power.
No power at intersections so it's a 4 way stop, not everybody remembers..

We live on the edge of the power outage, we have power but a bunch of friends do not.
We sent out phone calls to a bunch of folks to come here to get water for their horses, pets and livestock, families. Charge phones etc.
I'm wondering about all the people that need a CPAP to stay alive while they sleep, or an oxygen generator...
The Hospital at Pine Hurst has a generator of course but how much fuel and how far do you have to go to get power to pump it?

Our gas station was overrun with people needing gas and their grill was serving nonstop yesterday.

I won't be heading to work, no power at the shop and all the businesses are without power so looting is a concern so there is a curfew.

The Harris Teeter grocery had their generator going and was giving ice away so groceries in homes don't spoil so quickly.
Local folks are firing up back yard BBQ grills so people can eat their own food and not have it go to waste.

They are hopeful that power will be back online by Thursday but how much food will be wasted in the local restaurants and homes?

There were reports of death threats because of a "drag" show at a little local theater and the power reportedly went off mid show. Coincidence?

Can't remember where I read terrorist groups are planning to do this all across America was this a start to see how well it works who knows. But this could be the beginning of what's to come this winter hope I'm wrong.

A bunch of whiners. We had no power for three weeks after Hurricane Laura, and it was in August, it's hot here in August.

Given that there are drag queens and firearms involved I am sure the DoD is on it.

A buddy up in PA and I talk about this off and on.
Hit multiple grids when we have one of the arctic blasts.

I read that one of them was shot three times, still waiting for the explanation of how three bullets can take down a substation for days. Like you said, it doesn't add up.

I read a similar article YEARS AGO outlining how easy it would be to knock out power and poison the water supply of major cities.

Not very reassuring for public safety.

People should learn how to deal with outages, whether temporary or possibly long term outages because it sure seems like its a simple thing to take out infrastructure.
I have 2 generators, but wonder what problems searching for fuel could entail?

Very easily done as has been clearly demonstrated.

Where has it been "clearly demonstrated"?

Well, we don’t have all the answers and government credibility is an issue, but perhaps this was demonstrated recently in Moore County, North Carolina.

Time will tell…. But “three bullets” and millions of dollars damage….?

Lots of ways to cause trouble even for us who aren't in the business. Bullet to short a transformer. 50 years ago transmission towers were dynamited.
Chain a valve between tank cars of chlorine came from a fireman friend.
Brother installed lots of bullet proof glass in power
stations, water plants, guard shacks. Pretty much secretly.

Modern right thinking gives precedent to things like the drag show.

Curfews are just for the honest people. The bandits and freebooters couldn't care less.

A .45 ACP and a 12 Ga. can dissuade them.

L.W.

Not the first time somebody shot out the lights.

"The attack began just before 1 a.m. on April 16 last year, when someone slipped into an underground vault not far from a busy freeway and cut telephone cables.

"Within half an hour, snipers opened fire on a nearby electrical substation. Shooting for 19 minutes, they surgically knocked out 17 giant transformers that funnel power to Silicon Valley. A minute before a police car arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night.

"To avoid a blackout, electric-grid officials rerouted power around the site and asked power plants in Silicon Valley to produce more electricity. But it took utility workers 27 days to make repairs and bring the substation back to life."

Apologies for an NPR link to story

Yeah I hear you, that's what I meant by "clearly demonstrated". Nothing clear about it at this point.

think Goebbels and you'll be on the right track.

Feds have known of this weakness for a LONG time. power companies pay lip service to .gov concerns , but don't really prepare for bad actors/events. JIT is great in academic theory and corporation boardrooms , not so much in reality.

I have actually wondered why those wishing to stir up real trouble have not pursued such a route. Thousands of untended facilities out there.

Two generators, 5 yrs worth of firewood, an oil stove, Coleman camping equipment and a travel trailer we could move into when things became serious. Most city folks are screwed with an extended outage.

if a rodent can put 1500 folks out of power

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/rats-tysons-power-outage-caused-by-rodents/ar-AA12cKqp



just think what 3 bullets in the right location on transformers might do.

One way can be putting bullet holes in the case of the transformer - the cooling oil leaks out, the transformer gets hot and burns up. Another could be shooting out the top insulators causing phase to phase or phase to ground faults and burning up the transformers. There are other similar possibilities but most likely it is the first scenario since it was specifically noted that there were three bullet holes.

This might have been similar to the Massive Power Outage in the town of Remote Oregon...
100%.... the one farm house and both the trailers in the trailer park have been without electricity since yesterday at noon.

someone cut the 100 ft extension cord, supplying the electrical grid to the town of Remote...

Having worked around (not at) a few of those quite rural, and large, substation type facilities I've always been amazed they are primarily protected by a simple 6' chain link fence and a padlock. Not even a vehicle barrier. And some of those facilities would likely bring down a regional grid area and not just 40K homes if they were compromised.

But, we like our relatively inexpensive electricity, and municipal water, and sewage, etc.

I'm with you. While I don't have 5 years wood on site, there's a bit of it right nearby, even right here on my little spread. Generator for the well, enough food for a bit, and good neighbors.

Once again the page one comments did not fail to disappoint. My side still hurts.

But, back on task....in the days of "long lead items" basically being everything, a couple of days is not bad for this type of outage.

I always wondered what would happen if someone was to take an RC airplane, fly it over a substation and drop a couple pounds of chaff over a transformer.

Though whacking an insulator with a bullet would be simplier/quicker...

What would a 700gr 50cal bullet do to a windmill blade? 🙄🤔😁

Well ya see

If it turns out that it was against that drag queen show, then said "shooter" got his message across. Now, will the FBI round up some townspeople and execute them in reparations, or is it too soon to believe s hi t like that yet?