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Report: Power Plant Attack: “Most Significant Incident of Domestic Terrorism" (shortened)
SHTF Plan ^ | 2/6/14 | Mac Slavo

Posted on 02/06/2014 3:47:03 PM PST by Kartographer

Chances are you didn’t hear about it when it happened or the investigation that followed. Last April just outside of San Jose, California the grid system came under direct attack.

Investigators have yet to identify any suspects, but the attack seems to have been well planned. First, someone accessed an underground vault housing fiber optic telephone cables and cut off communications to a large PG&E Substation.

Then, for 19 minutes, someone opened fire from long-range.

The sniper apparently utilized 7.62x39mm rounds, such as those used in an AK-47, to target the oil-driven cooling systems for 17 large transformers. The shell casings found at the scene had been wiped clean of fingerprints. According to Newsmax none of the transformers exploded, but the damage was significant enough for PG&E to force their electricity feeds to reroute through another station in an effort to prevent a widespread blackout.

As of yet police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have no leads. The evidence suggests any number of scenarios with the highest likelihood being a coordinated attack involving a team. But because of its simplicity it’s possible that the attack could have been orchestrated by a lone individual.

Whatever the case, the event prompted the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Jon Wellinghoff to call it, “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred.”

(Excerpt) Read more at shtfplan.com ...


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KEYWORDS: electricity; energy; powerplant; powerplantattack; powerplantterrorism; preparedness; prepper; terrorattack
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The Wall Street Journal reports:

The 64-year-old Nevadan, who was appointed to FERC in 2006 by President George W. Bush and stepped down in November, said he gave closed-door, high-level briefings to federal agencies, Congress and the White House last year. As months have passed without arrests, he said, he has grown increasingly concerned that an even larger attack could be in the works.

He said he was going public about the incident out of concern that national security is at risk and critical electric-grid sites aren’t adequately protected.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation doesn’t think a terrorist organization caused the Metcalf attack, said a spokesman for the FBI in San Francisco. Investigators are “continuing to sift through the evidence,” he said.

Some people in the utility industry share Mr. Wellinghoff’s concerns, including a former official at PG&E, Metcalf’s owner, who told an industry gathering in November he feared the incident could have been a dress rehearsal for a larger event.

“This wasn’t an incident where Billy-Bob and Joe decided, after a few brewskis, to come in and shoot up a substation,” Mark Johnson, retired vice president of transmission for PG&E, told the utility security conference, according to a video of his presentation. “This was an event that was well thought out, well planned and they targeted certain components.”

cali-attack2(Via the Wall Street Journal)

The most significant power grid attack in U.S. history failed to be reported in any detail by officials or the mainstream media, likely because they did not want to panic the populace.

Could this have been a test for a larger scale event? Certainly.

Since then, what steps have been taken to protect the grid from such attacks, or even other potential scenarios like electro-magnetic pulse devices or solar flares that could wipe out the national power grid within seconds? None.

A single individual could have carried out such an attack. Cut the phone lines. Take aim. Open fire. It’s simple, really.

Now consider the potential damage if a rogue terrorist group or state-sponsored initiative launched a coordinated attack across 50 to 100 critical nodes all over the United States. Such an attack could bring the country to a complete standstill, leaving economic destruction and large-scale destabilization in its wake. A couple of days are manageable, but if the right equipment were to be targeted then it’s possible that repairs would take up to 18 months because many transformer components are sourced from foreign nations and have long build times.

The telecommunications systems, power grid, water utilities, transportation systems, oil refineries and other critical industries across America are, as reported by U.S. Cyber Command, completely exposed to attack. It could come in the form of a cyber vulnerability, as we saw in Illinois when a utility station’s water pump systems overheated due to a reported digital security breach or when our drone fleet was hacked in the middle east. Or, it could be a physical attack like the one in California, with future incidents potentially involving larger transformers and explosives instead of AK-47′s.

The possibilities exist. Our government knows this, as evidenced by the comments of outgoing DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano who recently said that a crippling attack against U.S. infrastructure elements is inevitable.

The fact is that our infrastructure is outdated and exposed. It will not be repaired any time soon because the costs run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

Thus, the only real option for Americans is to expect that such an event is coming, and to prepare for it.

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who has retired and now lives well outside of populated areas, says people should get out of major cities and have a retreat to avoid the fall-out from a grid collapse. His fears are substantiated by a recent report that claims 9 out of 10 Americans would die within a year of the electricity going out.

But whether you head out to the boonies or stay local, even the Federal Emergency Management Agency recommends having an emergency supply because, as they’ve admitted, any response in a catastrophic scenario will be slow to come. This means that having a preparedness plan complete with evacuation strategies, food supplies, water and other considerations will be essential to survival.

The threat is real.

1 posted on 02/06/2014 3:47:03 PM PST by Kartographer
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To: Kartographer

2 posted on 02/06/2014 3:47:42 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: appalachian_dweller; OldPossum; DuncanWaring; VirginiaMom; CodeToad; goosie; kalee; ...

Preppers’ PING!!


3 posted on 02/06/2014 3:48:19 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Kartographer; martin_fierro

SVPing, please?


4 posted on 02/06/2014 3:48:35 PM PST by null and void (<--- unwilling cattle-car passenger on the bullet train to serfdom)
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To: Kartographer

Link to Wall Street Journal Story:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2FSB10001424052702304851104579359141941621778&oq=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Fnews%2Farticles%2FSB10001424052702304851104579359141941621778&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.4346j0j4&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8


5 posted on 02/06/2014 3:55:59 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Kartographer

Secretary of Homeland Security, Charles Johnson, has not yet been informed by Eric Holder as to which Tea Part group they will pin this on.


6 posted on 02/06/2014 4:01:17 PM PST by Iron Munro ("Show me the man, and I'll show you the crime." - Lavrentiy Beria (& Eric Holder))
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To: Kartographer
AK-47??
Sounds like the Tea Party. /s

Or maybe a false flag? Since F&F didn't work out, maybe somebody was trying to manufacture another crisis to justify a crackdown on all them dangerous weapons in the hands of civilians.

7 posted on 02/06/2014 4:03:10 PM PST by oldbrowser (Obamacare is Obama's Great Leap Forward)
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To: Kartographer
The muzzies don't need nukes......

just a few high-powered rifles and a Volkswagon or two.

8 posted on 02/06/2014 4:06:01 PM PST by stboz
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To: Kartographer

And yet, we still allow muslims to immigrate into the US, and our politicians want to grant amnesty to the Mexican invaders.


9 posted on 02/06/2014 4:07:14 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (...)
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To: Kartographer

Actually, genius in it`s simplicity.

Now what, deploy thermal imaging cameras at all power plants and sub stations combined with our own snipers?

There are numerous simple little things one could think of that would be considered a major attack.


10 posted on 02/06/2014 4:08:49 PM PST by Para-Ord.45 (Americans, happy in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own dictators.)
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To: Kartographer

Calm down folks. The guy worked at FERC. Chances are he’s an accounting type. The attack was on a substation NOT A POWER PLANT. The substation was back up in less than a month. All of the equipment is normally available as spares.


11 posted on 02/06/2014 4:22:58 PM PST by meatloaf (Impeach Obama. That's my New Year's resolution.)
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To: meatloaf

Yeah just a dry run it doesn’t mean a thing. Something so simple couldn’t led to anything big like 9-11 or something...


12 posted on 02/06/2014 4:29:35 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Kartographer

My money is on Billy-Bob and Joe.


13 posted on 02/06/2014 4:30:22 PM PST by Islander7 (There is no septic system so vile, so filthy, the left won't drink from to further their agenda)
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To: Kartographer

Silicon Valley Freeway?


14 posted on 02/06/2014 4:36:13 PM PST by informavoracious (Open your eyes, people!)
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To: Islander7

Billie Bob and Joe always cut the phone lines before they a go a shoot’n.


15 posted on 02/06/2014 4:41:49 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Kartographer

ping


16 posted on 02/06/2014 4:43:23 PM PST by mbarker12474
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To: meatloaf

Understand your point.

But after reading the entire WSJ story, this was a pretty sophisticated attack, which was what the Navy Seals brought in as consultants described it as.

Who did this and what was the motive?


17 posted on 02/06/2014 4:46:45 PM PST by nascarnation (I'm hiring Jack Palladino to investigate Baraq's golf scores.)
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To: nascarnation

Were they negotiating with the union at the time?


18 posted on 02/06/2014 4:51:46 PM PST by Dusty Road
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To: nascarnation

Read the article??? What a unFReeper like suggestion! ;-)


19 posted on 02/06/2014 4:55:25 PM PST by Kartographer ("We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.")
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To: Dusty Road

Interesting question.
Some cursory internet search implies the IBEW contract runs 2011 to 2014 so maybe not.
But I’d defer to local knowledge on this one.


20 posted on 02/06/2014 5:02:02 PM PST by nascarnation (I'm hiring Jack Palladino to investigate Baraq's golf scores.)
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