Vandals take out power substations in Washington state

Four power substations in the Tacoma, Wash., area were taken out on Christmas Day, cutting power to an estimated 14,000 people at one point. Vandalism was reported at the first substation early Christmas morning. The suspects cut one of the locks on the fenced-in area to gain access to one of the substations, said Sgt. Darren Moss Junior of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department. A fire at a fourth substation was reported Christmas night, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office.

Didn’t this happen somewhere else recently? Power companies in Washington, Oregon, and North Carolina have reported similar attacks on substations. The early December attack on two substations in Moore County, N.C., left tens of thousands of people without power and took days to repair. In January, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security report warned that domestic extremists “adhering to a range of ideologies” have planned to attack electricity infrastructure for years.

Dig Deeper: Listen to Josh Schumacher’s report on how new efforts to ferret out domestic terrorists could trample First Amendment freedoms.