The Substation Attacks: Not Mere Vandalism

On Saturday night December 3, unidentified assailants attacked two critical Duke Energy substations in Moore County, North Carolina with gunfire. The damage affected about half the county’s 99,000 residents, threatening lives and gaining the attention of not only local law enforcement, but also the FBI, The Department of Homeland Security, the state’s Governor Roy Cooper, and even President Biden. Duke Energy said the damage is “severe” and that much of the equipment could not be repaired and would have to be replaced. The county declared a state of emergency and put a curfew in place, and several organizations organized shelters and meals for those affected. At this writing, about 30,000 customers are reportedly still without power, and may remain so until sometime Thursday.

There are rumblings on social media, none backed up with verifiable evidence, that the attack is related to a protest of a drag show that took place Saturday night at the Sunrise Theater in Southern Pines, N.C., but neither the FBI or local law enforcement will cite any motive or suspects at this time.

But there’s a larger security issue here. There are approximately 55,000 electric substations in the United States. They are unguarded, and almost all are open-air facilities, protected only by fencing. Yet they are essential parts of the grid—“critical infrastructure”—and as we’ve seen, taking down just two plunged tens of thousands of people into cold and darkness, especially dangerous for the elderly and those on some type of life support equipment, as well as hospitals and first responder facilities. Power outages in general disproportionally affect the poor and those without personal vehicles; those with chronic health problems; and in cases of sudden and unanticipated incidents like this, few people are prepared with food and other essentials for extended outages.

Electricity is at the heart of modern life, and very little moves without it. We see, during prolonged power outages following ice storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes, how quickly the fabric of society starts to tear. At least 246 Texans died in the wake of power outages during Winter Storm Uri in February of 2021, and an analysis of data from the CDC attributed as many as 978 excess deaths to the storm and blackout. People left their homes to seek warmth, water, or food, and were killed on icy roads or in related accidents. Others resorted to space heaters and died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Still, virtually everyone still takes having electricity a given—until it’s not.

The Moore County attacks were far more than “vandalism.” We’re not talking about “taggers” (graffiti artists) or kids with BB guns shooting at mailboxes. We’re talking about significant threats to life of large numbers of people. We're talking about domestic terrorism.

For the FBI’s purposes, domestic terrorism is defined in Title 18 of U.S. Code as “Involving acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appearing to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion; or affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination or kidnapping; and occurring primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security, however, looks to the Homeland Security Act definition of in Title 6 of the U.S. Code, which is substantially similar but not identical to the title 18 definition. That provision defines terrorism as any activity that involves an act that is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure (italics mine) or key resources; is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State or other subdivision of the United States; appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.

Any act that “terrorizes” entire civilian populations not only intimidates them but endangers their lives, and should be considered terrorism by definition. Our fragile and vulnerable power grid and water systems, among others, surely qualify as critical infrastructure, and obviously need much more protection. And those who attack them should be pursued and prosecuted as domestic terrorists.