A series of attacks on power facilities in Oregon and Washington has caused alarm and highlighted the vulnerabilities of the US power grid.
The attacks in the Pacific Northwest come just days after a similar assault on power plants in North Carolina cut power to 40,000 people.
As first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting and KUOW Public Radio, there have been at least six attacks, some of which involved firearms and left residents without power. Two of the attacks share similarities with the incident in Moore County, North Carolina, where two stations were hit by gunfire. Authorities have not yet released a motive for the attack in North Carolina.
The four Pacific Northwest utilities whose equipment was attacked have said they are cooperating with the FBI. The agency has not yet confirmed whether it is investigating the incidents.
It is not known who is behind the attacks, but experts have long warned that there is discussion among extremists about disrupting the country’s power grid.
The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) said in a statement Thursday that it was seeking tips about “trespassing, vandalism and malicious damage to equipment” at a Clackamas County substation on Nov. 24 that caused damage and required a cleanup that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“It’s clear that someone wanted to damage the equipment and possibly cause a power outage,” said John Lahti, the company’s vice president of transmission field services. “We were fortunate to avoid any power outages, which would have jeopardized public safety, increased financial damage and presented challenges to the community during the holidays.”
Any attack on electrical infrastructure “potentially puts the safety of the public and our workers at risk,” said BPA, which distributes hydropower in the Pacific Northwest.
Portland General Electric, a utility that provides electricity to nearly half the state’s population, said it had begun repairs after suffering “a deliberate physical attack on one of our substations” that also occurred in the Clackamas area by the end of November 2022. He said. he was “actively cooperating” with the FBI.
Puget Sound Energy, a Washington power company, reported two cases of vandalism at two substations to the FBI and utilities in late November, but said the incidents appeared unrelated to other recent attacks .
“There is no indication that these vandalism attempts indicate an increased risk to our operations and we have extensive measures in place to monitor, protect and minimize the risk to our equipment and infrastructure,” the company said in a statement.
Duke Energy workers repair an electrical substation they say was hit by gunfire near Pinehurst, North Carolina, on Dec. 6. Photo: Drone Base/Reuters
Intelligence experts and analysts have long warned of the vulnerability of the US power grid and talk among extremists about attacking the crucial infrastructure.
“It’s very vulnerable,” said Keith Taylor, a professor at the University of California, Davis who has worked with energy companies. “[These attacks] they are a real threat.”
The physical risks to the power grid have been known for decades, Carnegie Mellon University engineering professor Granger Morgan told CBS. “We’ve made some progress, but the system is still quite vulnerable,” he said.
A US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) report released in January warned that domestic extremists have been developing “credible specific plans” to attack electrical infrastructure since at least 2020.
DHS has cited a document shared on a Telegram channel used by extremists that included a white supremacist guide to attacking a power grid with firearms, CNN reported.
“These fringe groups have been talking about this for a long time,” Taylor said. “I’m not at all surprised that this happened, I’m surprised it took this long.”
Three men who law enforcement identified as members of the Boogaloo movement allegedly planned to attack a Nevada substation in 2020 to distract police and try to incite a riot.
In 2013, as-yet-unknown assailants cut fiber-optic phone lines and used a sniper to shoot at a Pacific Gas & Electric substation near San Jose in what appeared to be a carefully planned attack that caused millions of dollars in damage . The attack prompted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) to order grid operators to increase security.
“They knew what they were doing. They had a specific goal. They wanted to take out the substation,” Jon Wellinghoff, then president of Ferc, told 60 Minutes, adding that the attack could have “torn down all of Silicon Valley.”
After the 2013 attack in California, a Ferc analysis found that attackers could cause a coast-to-coast blackout if they knocked out just nine of the US’s 55,000 substations.
The US electric grid is vast and extensive with 450,000 miles of transmission lines, 55,000 substations and 6,400 power plants. Power plants and substations are scattered across the country, connected by transmission lines that carry electricity across farmland, forests and swamps. Attackers don’t necessarily have to get close to deal significant damage.
“In a centralized system, if I [want] to take out a coal plant, I don’t even have to take out the plant, I just have to take out the transmission line,” Taylor said. “You can cause a ripple effect where one outage can cause an entire coast to come down.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report