The Barbarians Among Us

The Barbarians Among Us

The Vandals were a Germanic people who sacked Rome in 455. Before approaching the city, they knocked down all of its aqueducts, which supplied fresh drinking water for ordinary citizens.

And while the Vandals looted the city’s wealth, they left Rome's buildings intact and refrained from killing people. They simply stole what they could, packed up their loot, and went home.

Still, it is from the Vandal's actions that we use the term "vandalism" to describe any destruction that seems pointless. Perhaps it was the taking out of critical infrastructure -- the Roman aqueducts were marvels of engineering -- that is the reason that the Vandals are viewed by history as prototypical barbarians.

Today in America, we find that the Barbarians are still among us as exemplified by reports that certain individuals have been attacking electrical substations. And while their motives may vary, it is not so large a stretch to believe that some of the wanton destruction of critical infrastructure amounts to domestic terrorism.

One thing is certain: Such attacks are fundamental assaults on economic development. They are terroristic in nature in that they are directed at the economic well-being of a community. I say that because quality infrastructure investment is essential for promoting quality growth, building wealth, and improving well-being. It’s not only good governance but it leads to further capital investment on the private side.

The condition of roads, bridges, schools, water treatment plants, and other physical assets greatly influences the economy’s ability to function and grow. Commerce simply requires it.

Growing communities rely on and continually invest in well-functioning water, sewer, power, and internet systems. Schools require these things to improve educational opportunities for future workers. Foundational to economic development is the belief that infrastructure improvements lead to further investment and productivity growth.

So why would someone want to inhibit economic growth and quality of life by attacking critical infrastructure? To be sure, most vandalism is not an attack on infrastructure, but on buildings by breaking windows and spray painting graffiti.

Individuals vandalize for a variety of reasons: to convey a message, to express frustration, to stake revenge, to make money, or as part of a game.

In February 2022, three white supremacists pleaded guilty to a plan to attack energy facilities around the country in hope of inciting chaos and a race war. Clearly, that is domestic terrorism.

But in the case of four electricity substations attacked last month in the Tacoma, Washington area, the motive appears to be assisting in the commission of another crime, a burglary.

Two men have been arrested and charged for those attacks that left thousands without power over the holidays. One of the suspects reportedly told authorities they did it so they could break into a business and steal money.

Cellphone location data and other evidence tied them to the attacks on the four substations in Pierce County. The attacks on Dec. 25 left more than 15,000 customers without power.

On Dec. 3, vandals attacked two Duke Energy substations in Moore County, North Carolina, leaving 45,000 customers in the dark for more than three days, officials said. Police have yet to clarify how the unidentified person or persons responsible for the attack were able to simultaneously sabotage two substations ten minutes apart. 

Officials have linked the attacks in Moore County to extremist groups.

Days before the attack, the Department of Homeland Security issued a bulletin through its National Terrorism Advisory System warning that the “United States remains in a heightened threat environment” and “lone offenders and small groups” may commit acts of violence on various targets, including critical infrastructure.

People with guns opened fire and, in one case, breached a facility, they said. As electricity was restored to the last of the North Carolina customers on Dec. 7, someone opened fire near a Duke Energy hydro facility in Ridgeway, South Carolina, about 130 miles south of Moore County.

In mid-November, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported that attacks on six substations operated by Portland General Electric, the Bonneville Power Administration, the Cowlitz County Public Utility District and Puget Sound Energy in Washington and Oregon had taken place mid-November. Federal investigators were comparing ballistics evidence in both attacks to determine whether they were connected.

On Dec. 6, CBS News confirmed the existence of a bulletin issued by local and federal law enforcement in Oregon warning of attacks on power grids following the attacks there and in Washington state.

According to the memo, power companies in the two states have reported "physical attacks on substations using hand tools, arson, firearms and metal chains."

The Achilles Heel of the Nation

Across the United States, there are some 55,000 electrical substations that serve to transform high voltage from big power lines, into lower voltages for homes and businesses. Many of them are sitting ducks, soft targets, for saboteurs.

"The electric grid is the Achilles heel of the United States," Mike Mabee, a self-described "grid-security gadfly", told NPR.

Three thousand different companies, both public and private, own or operate parts of the grid, Mabee told "60 Minutes" in August 2022. 

While cyberattacks have the capability of taking operating systems offline, the easiest way to hurt Americans is by shooting up a substation with an assault rifle. That is because substations cool themselves with circulating oil. High-powered rifle rounds can easily pierce transformers, springing leaks, making them overheat and shut down.

Larger transformers are about the size of railroad boxcars. Carnegie Mellon University professor M.Granger Morgan says they aren't easy to replace. The backlogs can stretch to 18 months, with price tags that can run into millions of dollars. And the cost to replace equipment pales compared to the potential toll of taking down the grid.

In Moore County, it took about five days to get the power turned back on because the equipment needed to be replaced. There isn't a lot of the necessary equipment available to spare.

Power grids in the U.S. have long been vulnerable to attack. In April 2013, a sniper attack on Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s Metcalf substation near San Jose, Calif., took out 17 transformers that funneled power to Silicon Valley. 

A year later, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which regulates the country’s interstate power system, began requiring utilities to better protect any substation that could knock out parts of the U.S. grid if attacked. No arrests were ever made.

"While the shooting centers on a distribution substation, this event highlights the fact that electric infrastructure continues to be vulnerable to firearms attack," Brian Harrell, a former director of the cyberthreat-sharing portal at the North American Electric Reliability Corp. said at the time.

"We must assume that at some point in the future, a North American utility will suffer from a planned and coordinated attack against electrical infrastructure," he said. "As an industry, we will be judged, and hard questions will be asked about how serious we considered the threats to be and what we did to mitigate future attacks."

From 2013 to August 2022, "there have been over 700 physical attacks against the U.S. electric grid," Mabee told Bill Whitaker on "60 Minutes."

In June 2022, the Department of Homeland Security warned that domestic extremists have been developing plans to disrupt the grid since at least 2020. 

"Power stations are an attractive target, and domestic terror groups know that destroying this infrastructure can have a crippling effect on industry, citizens and local governments," Harrell said.

This is our lead story in this issue of The Rising Tide, our weekly newsletter for business people and economic developers. To get full content — six more additional stories in this edition — become a Tide Insider.

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BBA offers objective insight to communities and companies. We help communities build a better investment environment and companies find the better communities to invest in. For more information, contact me, Dean Barber at dbarber@barberadvisors.com. Need a speaker? I can be there.

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Miguel Arredondo

Plant Manager | Operations Consultant | Manufacturing Process Improvement

1y

Several years ago, on my first trip to Italy, there were hand painted signs around the Eternal City: “A Roman cannot be a Vandal”. Open societies, by definition, become vulnerable to barbarians, seeking to take their benefits without doing the work. No free lunches. It is kind to be expected for a country based on Ideas that, when those ideas are discredited by the ignorant mob with the same “authority” as the more enlightened in society, that the structural damage comes from within. To paraphrase John Philpot Curran, the condition upon we took liberty in the Garden of Eden is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."

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