Increased alert at power substations after North Carolina attack
Dec. 21—Electric utilities are beginning to take security more seriously following a series of damaging attacks on substations and other infrastructure in North Carolina.
NW Electric Power Cooperative, which supports much of Northwest Missouri, has fences at all of its substations, although that precaution is designed to guard against copper theft rather than sabotage.
"Most of our substations, we also have cameras in some of our substations," said Bryon Roach, vice president of public relations and special projects. "We have door sensors and different alarms that we monitor. We have dispatch 24/7. We're more concerned about somebody getting in doing copper theft versus trying to take out an entire substation."
Evergy, which supplies electricity to St. Joseph, emailed News-Press NOW a statement when asked about its safety precautions in place.
"Evergy continuously monitors and prepares for threats to the grid and other infrastructure," said Andrew Baker, Evergy senior communications manager, in a statement.
Evergy officials would not elaborate on what precautions it uses "due to the event occurring outside our service area and the fact that we wouldn't want to detail our specific preparedness plans from a security perspective."
Discussions of the security of America's electric grid amplified after gunfire damaged two substations in Moore County, North Carolina, an area southwest of Raleigh.
"This individual that done this, it was targeted. It wasn't random," said Ronnie Fields, the Moore County Sheriff.
A few days before that attack, the Department of Homeland Security issued an updated National Terrorism Advisory warning of a heightened threat environment. The notice specified individuals and small groups are "motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances."
The warning included critical U.S. infrastructure as a potential target.
"Targets of potential violence include public gatherings, faith-based institutions, the LGBTQI+ community, schools, racial and religious minorities, government facilities and personnel, U.S. critical infrastructure, the media and perceived ideological opponents," the Department of Homeland Security wrote in the bulletin.
The Associated Press reported early this year on a government warning about extremists seeing the U.S. power grid as a specific target.
Officials with NW Electric Power Cooperative said they have not been notified of any specific threat to the Northwest Missouri area.
"We're monitoring everything, 24/7. We do have dispatch here. We probably can't necessarily predict or stop everything but we are here 24/7 to better serve our members," Roach said.
