CARTHAGE, N.C. — A sheriff says multiple power substations in a North Carolina county were vandalized in what appeared to be a criminal act, leaving tens of thousands of people without electricity.
Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said in a Facebook post that the power outage across Moore County that began just after 7 p.m. Saturday is being investigated as a criminal act.
More than 40,000 electric customers in the county remained without power on Sunday morning, according to the site poweroutage.us.
Southern Pines Fire Chief Mike Cameron said that two substations were damaged by gunfire on Saturday and that a possible motive wasn’t clear.
“I appreciate the swift response from local and state emergency responders in Moore County to protect public safety and work with Duke Energy to restore power,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a news release. “An attack like this on critical infrastructure is a serious, intentional crime and I expect state and federal authorities to thoroughly investigate and bring those responsible to justice. Moore County has strong, vibrant communities and the state will continue to provide transportation and public safety assistance.”
According to NCDPS, state and federal law enforcement are on the ground in Moore County Sunday and working with local law enforcement to investigate the incidents that caused the outages, including that gunfire damaged systems at the facilities.
Moore County officials have declared a local state of emergency, implemented a temporary curfew of 9 p.m. in the county and opened a temporary shelter Sunday afternoon, according to state officials.
Officials said the Red Cross is helping with the shelter.
Moore County Schools will be closed Monday. State Emergency Management and Public Safety officials will continue to provide support until power is restored.
“On Saturday evening, Duke Energy alerted Randolph Electric Membership Corporation of a transmission line failure. Outages have impacted at least 2,650 members in the Eastwood, Seven Lakes, West End and Carthage areas of our service territory,” Randolph Electric Membership Corporation wrote in a news release. “As REMC continues to work with Duke Energy, we are preparing for an extended, multi-day outage.”
Electric officials said the transmission line failure means REMC distribution lines cannot provide power through normal delivery processes.
“REMC’s goal is to restore our 2,650 members as quickly and safely as possible. To accomplish this, REMC has started work to build two tie lines of electric distribution. Both tie lines were slated for construction in REMC’s work plan,” the organization wrote. “This outage has accelerated the necessity of moving up these plans from future goals to immediate projects.”
Officials said the Randolph Electric Membership Corporation REMC has called in all crews and acquired additional contractor crews to complete the construction work as quickly as possible. Electric officials said crews will upgrade one pre-existing tie line from single-phase to a three-phase power supply to accommodate higher voltage loads.
“The other tie line will be new construction. Crews will change out and erect a large number of poles and cover almost three miles of territory in this fast-moving project,” the organization wrote. “Once complete, these new tie lines will allow REMC to back feed power to areas where members are experiencing an outage.”
Officials said as REMC provides restoration, the 2,650 who are affected should conserve as much energy as possible.
Officials anticipate work may take until Wednesday to restore most impacted members. “Some members could be restored by Sunday night, and more members will have their power restored as the project moves forward.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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