In a story that didn't receive any press (for obvious reasons), a southern California power substation was riddled with bullets for 19 minutes before authorities arrived, to find the perps gone into the night. It happened in April last year, and wiped out 17 big transformers. It took a month to get the substation back on line. The only clues were some clean AK-47 brass.
Power station picture by Panther
If AK's were the guns that were used, it bodes ill for our grid. There seem to be plenty of malcontented groups unhappy with our electrical grid, from the darker side of environmentalism to anti government militia groups to downright Al Queda troopers. Considering that our grid can barely stand assaults from Mother Nature, it makes you want to stock up on firewood and lentils. And so much AK ammunition is sold in this country that tracing it would be a nightmare.
The bad guys, in this case as always, have the upper hand. No one knows what these lamebrains would do till they've done it, and it does seem impossible to guard every transformer in the country. Banning guns wouldn't help, since there all ready too many floating around. Which means the legal ones are only the tip of the iceberg.
The vulnerability of our grid has been focused on cybersecurity threats so much lately, that a simple sniper attack had been overlooked. So, was this attack proof of concept? Or just the opening act...
