This reads to me as making news where there isn't any. WA/OR substations were more likely damaged by scrappers/gronks.

Yes, firearms are very often used by scrappers in this situation. Also, no correlation to the recent events elsewhere in the country that are extremely similar /s

Hell, Port Angeles lost power because of a fucking seagull. A seagull!

Wouldn't that also be news, though?

But did the seagull use a gun? If not, that power outage isn't comparable to this.

"The Peripheral" happening IRL

You wouldn't even need a lot of guns to cause a big problem either.

Wall Street Journal - U.S. Risks National Blackout From Small-Scale Attack

FTA:

A small number of the country's substations play an outsize role in keeping power flowing across large regions. The FERC analysis indicates that knocking out nine of those key substations could plunge the country into darkness for weeks, if not months.

Ha… I remember reading about that!

Yeah. I remember hearing Port Angeles was without power while I away doing my job for the day. Then one my my friends sister posted the local news article about the seagull causing it. But if a seagull can cause a city to lose power, then well… we’re fucked if anything else causes it.

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They don't need to be attacked, we lose power the moment someone farts near the substation.

Friendly reminder, if you're sane and not trying to meet an FBI agent, it's best not to go searching for the locations of these substations right now.

>“In recent attacks criminal actors bypassed security fences by cutting the fence links, lighting nearby fires, shooting equipment from a distance or throwing objects over the fence and onto equipment,” the memo continued.

Yes, this sounds like a sophisticated coordinated effort.

Wouldn't you want a sophisticated and coordinated attack to go under the radar though? Go read a copy of Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara. Attacking the electrical gridin haphazard ways is basically step 2 after propagandizing enough people. It's literally as basic as it gets.

Pardon the ignorance...but what is a gronk?

Goodie. American sleeper cells. Iran and Russia will be so proud of them. America sees your treason and raises you life in prison. Stop arming deranged people they need therapy.

There's also been a salmon dropped by an eagle that caused a large outage... Eagle was trying to get his salmon back when they got on site.

I think it’s what they call meth heads in Australia

The Trump-lickers trying to take the country down cuz they simply can’t get their way.

Jackpot

Why do I have a nagging suspicion that alt right groups are tangled up in this, perhaps testing security for their next act of stupidity as they seek another civil war?

I think that a politically motivated group trying to disrupt our grid is a possibility that has to be considered. After all, the article does cite the case of three men recently convicted for just that.

But the article describes a variety of different attacks, and it's not clear to me all of them are planned with political motivations. It seems just as likely that some of them could be unrelated acts of vandalism from the same types of people who shoot up road signs or start fires for fun. And metal theft is another possible motive for the cases described as using hand tools and chains.

Don’t forget the Mylar balloon debacle!

It's way more than a suspicion, friend.

It's a dogwhistle for lesser people. It's kicking down.