Large Portions of North Carolina Powerless After Substation Damage
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Signs of gunfire damage has the outage being treated as a criminal investigation.
On Saturday night, approximately 40,000 residents of Moore County, North Carolina suddenly lost power, leaving them in the dark and cold. The cause was traced by authorities and technicians to a local power substation, where signs of vandalism and gunfire damage were discovered. Due to this, the outage is being treated as a criminal investigation by the Moore County Sheriff’s Office with assistance from the FBI.
“The person, or persons, who did this knew exactly what they were doing,” Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said during a Sunday news conference. “We don’t have a clue why Moore County.”
At the time of writing, “no group has stepped up to acknowledge or accept they’re the ones who [did] it,” according to the Sheriff.
While some residents had their power restored over the weekend, as of Sunday night, around 33,000 households are still in the dark. According to the technicians, the damage was so severe that it could take them until at least Thursday to get everyone’s power back on. A state of emergency and curfew have been declared, with schools and businesses closing down and generator-powered shelters providing heat and essentials to those affected.
Tens of thousands of people are without power in a North Carolina country after two power substations were damaged by gunfire in what is being investigated as a criminal act. The damage may take days to repair. https://t.co/cXUbHWNnAa
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 5, 2022
“We were just getting over Covid. And now this,” the sheriff said, adding, “It’s gonna hurt all of our restaurants and businesses.”
“Equipment will have to be replaced,” Jeff Brooks, principal communications manager for Duke Energy, the company that handles the county’s power. “We’re pursuing multiple paths of restoration so that we can restore as many customers as quickly as possible. Recognizing that, we are looking at pretty sophisticated repair with some fairly large equipment.”
