Attack triggers curfew for county in US’ North Carolina
Residents of a central North Carolina county faced a second night of freezing weather without power on Sunday after vandals opened fire on two electric substations in what authorities called a “targeted attack.”
A motive for the Saturday night damage spree wasn’t clear, said Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields. Due to outages, schools will be closed Monday and potentially longer. Sunday church services and a well-known golf resort were disrupted.
The incidents were being investigated by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, Fields said. US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said on Twitter that she had been in contact with Duke Energy Corp, which owns the substations, and the Department of Energy was working with other agencies to investigate and respond.
“FBI Charlotte is investigating the willful damage to power facilities in Moore County,” the federal law enforcement agency said, referring to its offices in Charlotte, North Carolina. “We are in regular contact with local law enforcement and private sector partners.”
About 64 percent of Moore County’s electric customers remained without power on Sunday night in the largely rural area about 90 miles (145 kilometers) east of Charlotte, according to tracking site poweroutage.us.
The lights went dark at about 7 pm Saturday for 40,000 homes and businesses in Moore County. It was “a targeted attack. It wasn’t random,” Fields said.
