People in a quiet neighborhood in Carthage, a town in Moore County, North Carolina, heard a series of six loud pops a few minutes before 8:00 p.m. on Dec. 3, 2022. A resident named Michael Campbell said he ducked at the sound. Another witness told police they thought they were hearing fireworks. The noise turned out to be someone shooting a rifle at a power substation next door to Campbell’s home. The substation, operated by the utility Duke Energy Corp., consists of equipment that converts electricity into different voltages as it’s transported to the area and then steered into individual houses. The shots hit the radiator of an electrical transformer, a sensitive piece of technology whose importance would likely be understood only by utility company employees. It began dumping a “vast amount” of oil, according to police reports. A subsequent investigation has pointed to a local right-wing group, one of a wave of attacks or planned attacks on power infrastructure.

By 8:10 the lights in Carthage went out. Minutes later, a security alarm went off at a Duke Energy substation 10 miles away, this one protected from view by large pine trees. When company personnel responded, they found that someone had shot its transformer radiator, too. Police found shell casings on the ground at the site and noticed someone had slashed the tires on nearby service trucks. The substations were designed to support each other, with one capable of maintaining service if the other went down. Knocking out both facilities prevented the company from rerouting power. Police described the two incidents as a coordinated attack. About 45,000 families and businesses remained dark for four days. This was a burden for area grocery stores and local emergency services. One woman, 87-year-old Karin Zoanelli, died in the hours after the shooting when the blackout caused her oxygen machine to stop operating. The North Carolina Medical Examiner’s office classified the death as a homicide.

The attack on Duke’s facilities in Moore County remains unsolved, but law enforcement officials and other experts suspect it’s part of a rising trend of far-right extremists targeting power infrastructure in an attempt to sow chaos. The most ambitious of these saboteurs hope to usher in societal collapse, paving the way for the violent overthrow of the US government, according to researchers who monitor far-right communities.

Damaging the power grid has long been a fixation of right-wing extremists, who have plotted such attacks for many years. They’ve been getting a boost recently from online venues such as “Terrorgram,” a loose network of channels on the social media platform Telegram where users across the globe advocate violent white supremacism. In part, people use Terrorgram to egg one another on – a viral meme shows a stick figure throwing a Molotov cocktail at electrical equipment. People on the forum have also seized on recent anti-immigration riots in the UK, inciting people there to clash with police. In June 2022, months before the Moore County shootings, users on the forum began offering more practical support in the form of a 261-page document titled “Hard Reset,” which includes specific directions on how to use automatic weapons, explosives and mylar balloons to disrupt electricity. One of the document’s suggestions is to shoot high-powered firearms at substation transformers.

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    shots hit the radiator of an electrical transformer, a sensitive piece of technology whose importance would likely be understood only by utility company employees.

    What the fuck kind of idiots do they think people are? Everyone has a car with a radiator and knows what happens if it leaks. How is this some advanced technology you wouldnt understand?

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I think you overestimate people’s understanding of their vehicles. Radiators don’t leak all that often.

      In fact I only know it because I understand what a radiator is for in general

    • macniel@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      And also every one has fricking radiators in their home for heating. It really doesn’t take a genius to realise the importance of a radiator in a electrical transformer…

    • Sightline@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Red herring, most people know what a radiator is, however most people probably don’t know that substations have a radiator that cools critical components.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Maybe, but this is a story in the US, a bunch of yahoos deciding to use their “god given second amendment rights” to shoot up electrical distribution transformers. They have cars.

        I don’t understand their point here at all. I keep thinking it as a high school “prank” that people tried to seriously justify it until they convinced themselves. Its definitely an anarchy thing - there’s no way to protect something as ubiquitous as the electrical grid, so I guess they’ll keep getting away with it, but there also doesn’t seem to be a real point