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FBI Joins Investigation Into North Carolina Power Outage Caused By 'Intentional' Attacks on Substations (cnn.com) 235

Posted by msmash from the tussle-continues dept.
Joe_Dragon writes: With no suspects or motive announced, the FBI is joining the investigation into power outages in a North Carolina county believed to have been caused by "intentional" and "targeted" attacks on substations that left around 40,000 customers in the dark Saturday night, prompting a curfew and emergency declaration. The mass outage in Moore County turned into a criminal investigation when responding utility crews found signs of potential vandalism of equipment at different sites -- including two substations that had been damaged by gunfire, according to the Moore County Sheriff's Office.

"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." Fields said multiple rounds were fired at the two substations. "It was targeted, it wasn't random," he said. The sheriff would not say whether the criminal activity was domestic terrorism but noted "no group has stepped up to acknowledge or accept they're the ones who [did] it." In addition to the FBI, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation has joined the investigation, officials said. More than 33,000 customers were still in the dark across the county Sunday evening, the Duke Energy outage map showed. For some, the outage may stretch into Thursday, officials said, upending life for tens of thousands. All schools in the county will be closed Monday and authorities have opened a shelter running on a generator. Traffic lights are also out, and while a few stores with generators were able to open their doors, several businesses and churches in Moore County were closed Sunday, CNN affiliate WRAL reported.
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FBI Joins Investigation Into North Carolina Power Outage Caused By 'Intentional' Attacks on Substations More

FBI Joins Investigation Into North Carolina Power Outage Caused By 'Intentional' Attacks on Substations

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  • "The sheriff would not say whether the criminal activity was domestic terrorism but noted "no group has stepped up to acknowledge or accept they're the ones who [did] it."

    Not sure how long it's been since this sheriff fell off the back of the turnip truck, but I kinda doubt some international terrorist organization is going to claim an attack on Moore county in North Carolina.

    That'd be some weird-ass ISIS bragging rights.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 )

      The sheriff knows exactly who caused it. The problem is they're all friends.

      • Re:North Carolina terror. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:22PM (#63105036)

        The sheriff knows exactly who caused it. The problem is they're all friends.

        I'd more say it's a problem of motive. The hell does even "friends" have to gain from something like this? Kickbacks split 10 ways from a service station repair?

        Sadly, this smells more like a proof of concept attack. If anyone had doubts that you could take out almost half a million customers with very small targeted attacks using common tools, that doubt is gone now.

        • I also think this looks like a proof of concept"attack. The folks that did this defiantly understood how to make this have significant impact.

          • Re:North Carolina terror. (Score:5, Interesting)

            by cayenne8 ( 626475 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:19PM (#63105330) Homepage Journal
            Didn't this happen out west a number of years ago...maybe it was California?

            It was thought to be a proof of concept there too I thought.

            Here we go, it was an attack in CA on power substation in 2014 [npr.org].

            I thought this sounded familiar.

            They took out a number of transformers with rifle fire.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

              Yeah. I referred to it in October in that story [slashdot.org] about the French internet sabotage. There has been a lot of that sort of thing going around.

            • Some rural transformer is probably taken out by gun fire every day in the South. Seen them doing it. The only thing that I could imagine would make them think that this is more than some teenagers out cutting up is if they only hit some specific transformers that were guaranteed to take out an area for a while due to replacement time or something without hitting others at the same sites. I'm sure the electric companies in the region have a pretty large budget for replacing equipment hit by gunfire.

        • Re:North Carolina terror. (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:48PM (#63105170)

          The motive was stopping a drag queen show from happening. https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

          Community members said far-right activists have tried to shut down the event for weeks, the Fayetteville Observer reported Friday.

          Everyone knows each other in these southern towns. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if the sheriff knew the suspects. Hell they probably go out for beers after work.

          • Re:North Carolina terror. (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:14PM (#63105302) Homepage

            Community members said far-right activists have tried to shut down the event for weeks, the Fayetteville Observer reported Friday.

            It's also worth mentioning that this drag event they were protesting was for adults. When it comes to the anti-LGBTQ+ folks, "think of the children" is just a shiny veneer they put on their agenda to make it palatable to the masses (and also to be able to conveniently accuse their opposition of being "groomers"), but their ultimate goal is to restrict the rights of LGBTQ+ adults.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Junta ( 36770 )

            Everything at this point is a wild ass guess. No one has stated they did it or why, nor has anyone come up with any evidence.

            It *could* be some 'anti-woke' rednecking.

            It *could* be some organization testing reaction and recovery from a substation attack.

            It *could* be some concerned person that can't get anyone to plan for an attack and manufactured one on small scale to prove a point.

            It literally could be anything at all, any random guess is at this juncture equally valid or equally wild guessing.

            • It's also equally probable that some high school kids got drunk and decided to use the substation as target practice because they heard that equipment has flammable shit inside and could really blow up in an impressive way if shot with a rifle. And then when they got the shower of sparks and electrical arcing they wanted, they decided to do it again for the lulz.

              Nobody ever went broke betting on redneck rube kids doing stupid shit.

          • Re:North Carolina terror. (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 05, 2022 @08:15PM (#63106268)

            I can't believe articles like this are actually being printed in mainstream media. Facts are thrown out the window and wild speculation is being printed in their place.

            Did the washington post interview someone familiar with the unknown and alleged attacker's thinking, too?

            It is a big jump to go from, "power outage across several towns because a transformer was shot" to conspiracy theories like "Right wing terrorists did this to shut down a drag queen show". That is just hysterical sensationalism with a political bend.

            Drag Queen shows happen all the time all over the place, this isn't the only one that's occurred and isn't the only one that's had pushback. Speculating on the motives might have had merit had this been a more targeted attack - but this affected tens of thousands of people, not just Drag Queen Story Hour, and at present we don't even know if this was *intentional* let alone targeted at said show. There's no suspect, there's no motive.

            It is ridiculous to see things like this being printed in the media - you want to talk about this nation getting more divided, you only need to look at stories like this pushing politically motivated speculation as fact - as if all the facts are already known. Even worse is that this unfounded speculation is being taken at face value by people who should damn well know better.

            If in 3 months someone is apprehended and we find out they had entirely different motives, or they claim it was accidental - what then? These articles are all printed already, I'm sure the retraction will get 3 seconds of air time, if that, and the vast majority of people will just go along with the domestic right wing terrorist cells story. This is not how you accurately report news. This is how you push propaganda and get advertising clicks - something I might expect from a podunk no name yellow rags, but *Washington Post*?

            Unreal.

        • The sheriff knows exactly who caused it. The problem is they're all friends.

          I'd more say it's a problem of motive. ...

          It's NC, so I'm throwing "drunk hillbillies" into the hat.
          Probably heard the equipment humming and thought it was "aliens" ... :-)

          (If it had been FL, I would have just guessed, "It was Saturday.")

        • I'd more say it's a problem of motive. ...

          Obviously, the substations were, as Uncle Jimbo on South Park would say, "Comin' right for us" [youtube.com] and they fired in self-defense.

    • Thereâ(TM)s a corner of my brain that wonders if thereâ(TM)s some sensitive govt site in the county thatâ(TM)s classified, that would explain a terrorist attack But yeah, the likely answer is rednecks shooting up the substations on a bender who happen to be friends with the sheriff
      • 2 different substations?

        • "Dude, did you see the way that thing exploded with showers of sparks and shit! That was awesome! Let's do it again over at the other one of these things by the river! Oh, and let's stop for more beers on the way!"

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They can have terrorists locally born and bred. If it was the anti-drag-people doing it (which I'm not saying it was, because I don't know), then that is an INTENTIONAL ACT OF TERRORISM, right there. And those people do have an organization. Which would make it a terrorist organization.

      I know you have trouble imagining any terrorists who don't fit your stereotypes, but terrorists are gloriously diverse.

    • It's a couple of drunk hicks. The end.

    • ... I kinda doubt some international terrorist organization is going to claim an attack on Moore county in North Carolina.

      That'd be some weird-ass ISIS bragging rights.

      I went to a highschool with a water tower. A few times a year somebody would shoot a hole in the water tower and we'd all be off school for a couple days while they drained the tank and welded up the hole. My last year there the school installed a buried tank to stop it, but one of the pipes was above ground and kids would just shoot that instead.

      So I'd guess somebody wanted a day off school or work. Probably not ISIS.

    • We're getting into the world of Hollywood script writing here, but I suppose it's plausible that fucking up two substations that feed power to some facility that they actually want to rob shit from might be a thing - knock out all possible power feeds and then fuck up the on-site generator which is probably easier to access than whatever it is that is being protected.

      I have no reason to think this is what actually happened. But I could see some hillbilly dumbasses coming up with it, in aid of some other he

  • Just a test run (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:11PM (#63104992)

    Now that morons have discovered they can cause a city wide blackout over a drag queen show, wait until the 2024 election when blackouts hit areas that vote heavily democrat. The Fuck your feelings crowd sure feels threatened by some people who dress differently.

    • poling places must stay open and curfews can not (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:13PM (#63105004)

      poling places must stay open and curfews can not be used to keep people form voteing.

      • Now that voting is done electronically how does that work without electricity?

        • Generators. If need be.

        • Re:poling places must stay open and curfews can no (Score:5, Insightful)

          by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:36PM (#63105080)
          Don't most states use paper ballots that are scanned by machine? If the machines are down, they can still collect the paper ballots and either hand-count them or scan later.

          • And even if they didn't you can guarantee there would be a fallback mechanism, or at least some mechanism to get votes counted.

            Reminds me of when Maersk shared a virus with global logistics companies by accident. The fallout was incredible to watch. Companies like DHL were like:
            "Oh well I guess we won't be getting any new mail in or delivering it".
            "Wait what, why are we still getting new parcels?"
            "What do you mean the port of Rotterdam just picked up pen and paper and are still processing incoming ships!!!!

        • Now that voting is done electronically how does that work without electricity?

          Not sure how it works anywhere else, but here in Florida we use paper ballots that could presumably be scanned later, after the power returns. Of course, you still have to trust that no black magic fuckery is going on once things do enter the digital realm, but there's still an actual paper trail at least.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jbengt ( 874751 )

          Now that voting is done electronically . . .

          I have always and still vote using paper ballots. Only the scanning and counting is now electronic. So if electricity is lost, voting will still go on, but the counting will be slow.

          • Or they can use the same procedures they use for transferring the paper ballots to the county's election processing center exactly the same way they already do, and count the votes there. Presumably at such a central facility they would have backup generation in case some shit does go sideways in November in the northern hemisphere - not exactly out of question - and the county elections management and Secretary of State don't want to look like fucking clowns on the national news for not being prepared for

        • The backup paper ballots that they have, by law, available by request.

          Then, the ballots are driven somewhere else that has power and fed through counting machines there, with careful chain-of-custody rules being followed during the transfer. You know, exactly how it's done today.

          You think there was never a power outage at a voting precinct since the introduction of electronic voting equipment? You think nobody ever thought about this until right now?

    • Let's hold off on awarding the glory of bearing persecution until a motive is actually determined by something other than internet speculation.

    • The Fuck your feelings crowd sure feels threatened by some people who dress differently.

      Because it's gonna give your kids teh gay!. *eye roll*

      A drag show has about as much chance of making your kid gay as a gun show does of making your kid get shot. Oh wait, they sell guns at gun shows, don't they? Oops, bad analogy then.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
        So the thing is there's been a huge spike in the number of trans and gay people in the last 20 years.

        This Spike just so happens to mirror the exact same Spike we saw when schools stopped trying to teach left-handed people to write with their right hand.

        What do you know when you don't force people to behave a certain way the rate of certain behaviors increases.

        Incidentally in every place where gender-affirming care is available and where gay and trans people have civil rights and acceptance in the

    • Go ahead. Democrats vote early and take advantage of vote-by-mail.

      The rubes that try it would just be fucking over the Republicans that wait until election day because vote-by-mail is OMG ELECTION FRAUD!!!1!!one11!

      Except for when they win, then they're super double-plus good with vote-by-mail.

  • Powerline insulators have been redneck targets... (Score:3)

    by AmazingRuss ( 555076 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:14PM (#63105008)
    ... for decades. This could be generic redneckery, as opposed to hate redneckery.
    • They weren't there to take the insulators. They just shot them off. It was very clear they were trying to shut down power. And they hit three stations so it's very clear it was coordinated.

      On the plus side they've done hundreds of thousands of dollars of damage and it would have taken multiple people to pull this off. Meaning you've got a good old-fashioned conspiracy that's going to be heavily investigated. It's virtually impossible for a conspiracy like this to stay secret because it's too hard for th

  • Drag show (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 )

    The suspicion was that the act of domestic terrorism (I'm calling it what it is) is related to protests over a drag show. [googleusercontent.com]

    Knocking own your own power to "own the libs" is certainly a new one. Not a lot of bright bulbs in that part of NC, for more than one reason.

    • Re:Drag show (Score:4, Funny)

      by sound+vision ( 884283 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:40PM (#63105102) Journal

      There seems not to be any evidence pointing to that.

      Although the people making the Facebook posts - and the media talking about those posts - were successful in immediately associating the attack with drag queens.

      • Re:Drag show (Score:4, Informative)

        by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:52PM (#63105192)

        There seems not to be any evidence pointing to that.

        https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]

        Community members said far-right activists have tried to shut down the event for weeks, the Fayetteville Observer reported Friday.

        Total coincidence that it happens just before the show and it's a coordinated attack.

        • If someone is nutty enough to get themselves arrested for a crime that could put them away for 20 years, I'd think they'd have better alternatives. Whoever did this is in for some serious ass-fucking.

        • I doubt the drag show was the only thing happening in South Carolina on a Saturday night. People at the show seeing the power go out and concluding it must be an attack on the show, is not evidence.

          Besides, these kind of substation attacks have been trialled over the past few years in the US. Different states. Whatever is animating these groups, it's not this particular event. They probably aren't even local to North Carolina. It's just as likely to be a foreign operation as it is antifa or the redhats.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by spitzak ( 4019 )

            Power was knocked out before the show and they had to cancel it. Not during the show.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          People get upset about drag shows, gays, and pretty much anything LGBTQ all the time in this country. I'm not sure why in this case that all of a sudden means "we know they attacked the power stations". I mean if these people who did this were the locals that were upset about the drag show why on earth would they shut off their own power for multiple days? Especially during Winter.

          It still could have been them I guess, I just havent heard about us having anything on them beyond sheer circumstance and conjec

    • It is like Antifa and BLM destroying their own cities. Guess they must all be Trump supporters.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by qeveren ( 318805 )
      You're assuming these guys didn't come from out-of-state.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Yeah, no. If the country were to be riled by a popular uprising, trying to make everything impervious to sabotage is about the last thing that would help.

  • Electricity is the new, acceptable nuclear option (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cloud.pt ( 3412475 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @03:41PM (#63105108)

    And I can't understand how science fiction and Russia are getting this right, and before most others. And my guess is China has noticed, and they're all getting it right before western democracies are forced to take measures due to climate change (because the current external threat does not seem to be enough to induce change, but climate eventually will through public opinion towards renewables and micro-generation).

    Russia may very well win the war out of a lack of backup infrastructure that can withstand targetted electrical grid attacks. I am, unfortunately, somewhat confident about this. While you can move people and smaller infrastructure, you can only keep a fight going if your country doesn't become unlivable and undefendable out of lack of basic conditions. Electricity now drives most basic living conditions such as, but not limited to, heating, health, food, communication but also the economy. Take electricity away, eventually Russia will be able to swat out the Ukrainians willing to fight. And if not swat them out, they will bend their will through public opinion that the war cannot be fought. If you can't feed your children, you will eventually have to accept rule of this aggressor state.

    There's this new Amazon show called The Peripheral, and they casually dropped a new armaggedon scenario that not only, but centrally, involves a US blackout triggering it. It did sound silly at first glance, but it clicked just minutes after they may be getting it right, as soon as I connected the dots on current Russian offensive actions - killing the electrical grid infrastructure. It is so simple, so effective, and cheap, now imagine it becomes even cheaper through the use of our own common internet which every grid pretty much relies upon these days. Europe isn't prepared for this for sure, and I fear we western Europeans may have to find this the hard way, and without much time to prepare for it now.

    • Even with micro-generation, we still need a centralized grid to power things like hospitals, factories, electric public transportation, streetlights, and roadside EV charging stations. (And even homes, since it's not practical to have sufficient battery backup to survive a few weeks' worth of dark, snowy weather.)

      Micro-generation isn't the full answer -- the answer is dealing with terrorism of that type. That requires more than putting whoever did this in prison. It requires shutting down the media outle

      • Micro-generation isn't the full answer -- the answer is dealing with terrorism of that type.

        The answer is to build robust systems with appropriate security so that it's not trivial to make these attacks remotely, for starters. That's cheaper than any other option. By all means, do some other things, but start doing that immediately.

    • You act as if this is some kind of revolutionary idea when it’s as old as warfare. It’s more proof Putin wanted to steal the country and when he realized he wasn’t going to get it he is breaking it like a toddler who didn’t get his way with a new toy. Putin is a hero, he has United Europe and expanded NATO, gotten the entire EU to swear off fossil fuels decades ahead of plans, and has exposed what was once perceived to be one of the top threats in the world to be just a rotted corr

      • I wasn't trying to imply it was a revolutionary new idea. What is so surprising is how it is still so overlooked. And unfortunately I have a theory - people say that Europe has stagnated "militarilly" due to long peace and protection from the US and the few nuke triad states we have locally. But more impressively is how we have stagnated energetically. We have leaned on cheap and pipe-accessible oil and gas from all around us, under the impression Russia wouldn't ever care, but also that the mediterranean a

  • Disgruntled Employee? (Score:3)

    by crow ( 16139 ) on Monday December 05, 2022 @04:38PM (#63105462) Homepage Journal

    I'm surprised that I haven't been hearing suggestions that this was an disgruntled employee. I'm under the impression that there is evidence that this was someone who understood exactly what to hit and where. The anti-drag show story seems to be a stretch. If this were some sort of terrorism, then they would have probably gone farther north and hit during an extreme cold spell or blizzard. A foreign attack would be more likely to try to shut things down through hacking into the systems online.

    I see one report saying that this was only two substations. I suspect the timing allowed for the perpetrator to drive from one to the other between the attacks, which would allow for this to have been done by one person.

  • About time the high priest took a day off...oh, wait --it's just "priest"

  • Don't ban deer rifles.
    I'd bet this was tannerite set off by a high powered deer rifle. https://www.dailymotion.com/vi... [dailymotion.com]
    Have to be far enough away not to get hit by scrapnel, but close enough to detonate it (2000 fps).

  • There was a very similar attack on a power station [yahoo.com] in California back in 2013. It failed to bring down the power station though.

    One wonders if the North Carolina attack is related, or just the modus operandi is the only similarity.

  • "We don't have a clue why Moore County."

    Practice. You'd better prepare for something bigger to happen soon.

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