Dec. 26 (UPI) — Several reports of break-ins at area power stations left tens of thousands of people in the dark on Christmas Day in parts of Washington state, police said.
The Sheriff’s Department in Pierce County, Wash., which includes Tacoma, reported that more than 14,000 people lost power on Christmas Day after reports of vandalism at four separate power stations.
Nothing was taken from the power stations, though authorities said there were signs of forced entry and damage to critical equipment.
“We do not have any suspects in custody,” the Pierce County Sheriff stated. “It is unknown if there are any motives or if this was a coordinated attack on the power systems.”
Law enforcement officials in early December told KING-TV, the local NBC affiliate, that the FBI was warning of threats to power stations along the Pacific Northwest.
The Department of Homeland Security issued a separate bulletin that critical infrastructure could be the target of terrorist attacks.
“Our homeland continues to face a heightened threat environment — as we have seen, tragically, in recent acts of targeted violence — and is driven by violent extremists seeking to further a political or social goal or act on a grievance,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said at the time.
Those warnings were followed by the discovery of shell casings from a high-powered rifle near substations in North Carolina. Shootings there left around 35,000 residents without power in early December.
Most of the consumers affected by outages in Washington had power restored by Sunday evening. Police are combing over surveillance video, while Joseph Wilson, a distribution manager with utility company Tacoma Power, told KING-TV that security was already tight.
“There are means to harden some of these facilities, but it’s a very expensive endeavor,” he said.
