Pacific Gas & Electric substation attack, April 16, 2013

[Logan]

Hope this isn't a repost; apologies if so.

California, April 16, 2013. Someone(s) hit a Pacific Gas & Electric electrical power substation in the early morning hours. Reports indicate that after cutting underground telecommunications cables, 100s of rounds fired from rifles knocked out multiple transformers. Plenty of 7.62x39 shell casings were left behind, no fingerprints. Then Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman, Jon Wellinghoff, brought in a team from the U.S. Navy’s Dahlgren Surface Warfare Center in Virginia. The team reportedly assessed it as a professional job. PG&E and local law enforcement deemed it "vandalism." There doesn't seem to have been a lot of follow-up on this until the WSJ ran an article on it back in February. (link included, but sub required)

I was living in Michigan in 2003 during the Northeast blackout. 45,000,000 Americans were effected and without power. It was an uncomfortable couple of days for folks. I'm wondering if this was a black-op red-team-type penetration test, or a group of terrorists gathering intel. Maybe a pissed off former-employee? What do you folks make of it?




http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014...for-10-months/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...for-utilities/
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...941621778.html
http://allenbwest.com/2014/04/2013-s...ation-act-war/

[Monky]

Repost... It actually made the news a few months back and got zero attention


Sent by a free-range electronic weasel, with no sense of personal space.

[Logan]

Damnit. I swear I searched threads beforehand.

Edit - found it. MOds feel free to delete. https://www.ar-15.co/threads/125477-...ht=grid+attack

[mindfold]

In before the lock..... PG&E is a client of mine during this attack. There were plenty of scared people when it happened. THEY KNEW WHAT THEY WERE DOING!!! Joe Public has no clue how easy it is to disrupt power to a major city. A couple of key substations around the Denver area and it would result in a black out for days if not weeks depending on the time of year.

[rondog]

A serious pro attack would involve explosives. Ya gonna do it, do it right.

[merl]

A serious pro attack would involve explosives. Ya gonna do it, do it right.

Why if they are not required?

[Ridge]

A serious pro attack would involve explosives. Ya gonna do it, do it right.

Not really necessary. The conductors for these stations are ceramic, and production queues are I think it was 18 months behind, so destroying those could cause catastrophic damage to the power grid for a long time.

[mindfold]

That sad thing is it wouldn't require "fancy" explosives.

[Gman]

As discussed in the other thread, these transformers are oil cooled and insulated. If you perforate the radiators or casing and drain the oil, you remove the transformer from the system. They're not hard targets.

Ceramics are typically used as insulators, not conductors.

[rondog]

Did they succeed? Can't recall ever hearing about this.