The recent attacks near Tacoma, WA are being reported as "burglaries" – fences were breached, damage done, but nothing stolen! I don't understand a burglary where nothing was stolen.....

 

Christmas was stolen.

 

Christmas was stolen.

No obvious political or social target, except that it was Christmas. A holiday, in the middle of a cold-storm, when few people were out and about. Maybe it started as "burglaries" but nothing of value was found so they smashed something like morons do when disappointed.

 

Christmas was stolen.

Well now we have suspect: Green, 6 ft, ugly as hell, accompanied by a little dog wearing fake reindeer antlers.

 

The recent attacks near Tacoma, WA are being reported as "burglaries" – fences were breached, damage done, but nothing stolen! I don't understand a burglary where nothing was stolen.....

While we usually equate "burglary" with "theft", in many/most places it is actually equivalent to "breaking and entering", which is usually defined as entering someplace without permission with the intent of committing a crime.

 

Breaking into a substation and not stealing anything goes like this:

When the copper-stealing meth addicts arrived, they were threatened by sobering hum of the massive transformers and the grounding plates under the switches they would need to turn off. In realizing they were ill-equipped to even pop the covers of that transformer with only their stolen half-inch socket set in hand, one of the two sees the oil window and says "if we open this, we will be so covered in oil that we wont be able to work our little harbor freight side cutters". They then look at eachother and, with a silent nod, they chose to leave and to never mention their stupidity to anyone.

Either that, or some UART hero wanted to play with their routers firmware...

 

Well now we have suspect: Green, 6 ft, ugly as hell, accompanied by a little dog wearing fake reindeer antlers.

Jack knows what to do.

 

We added a new substation to the facility I retired from a few years before I left. Two places companywide I had no desire to be in were the old and new substations and those were only 5.0 KV and 13.3 KV. Nope, no way.

Ron

 

Our plant distribution was 9.8kV and one substation was getting so overloaded I took an old substation from one of our defunct areas. Had to send it out to a sheet metal shop for repairs as it was from an area using chlorine and pretty rusted out in spots. Had all the switchgear serviced and contractor to install. I never had a problem working around them or our 3.5MW 600psi steam turbine generator gear. I did as per plant policy have our plant electricians do the substation switchgear and feeder breakers energization. Had one contractor crosswire a 400A 3 phase 480V feeder that tripped immediately on energization due to it being a bolted short but no sparks thank God! We sold excess power when it was available to Georgia Power and were always in a battle synchronizing with them.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/martinez-oil-refinery-says-raccoon-caused-recent-flaring/

MARTINEZ (CBS SF/BCN) - A raccoon allegedly broke into the Martinez Refining Company and caused a power interruption that resulted in last week's flaring at the refinery. and caused a power interruption that resulted in last week's flaring at the refinery.

The company said in an incident report to the Contra Costa Health Services' Hazardous Materials Programs that the masked marauder got into a refinery substation on Dec. 22, causing the substation to suffer a three-phase fault in a capacitor bank and a breaker to open "that resulted in a loss of equipment across the refinery."

The power interruption resulted in seven minutes of flaring.

 

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/martinez-oil-refinery-says-raccoon-caused-recent-flaring/

I'm surprised they didn't report on the status of the raccoon. Was it partially or completely vaporized?

 

I'm surprised they didn't report on the status of the raccoon. Was it partially or completely vaporized?

Or rare or medium-well or 3/4 ...

 

Or rare or medium-well or 3/4 ...

Blade Runner

 

Blade Runner

Not an unusual event at a major petro-chemical facility - a pump failure that moves condensate down to the next vessel (or circulates coolant in the condenser) and you get operational gridlock - the only option is to let the distillate vent to a "thermal oxidizer" (flare) until the distillation pot/column cools enough to stop making vapor.

Other failures include everything from power failure that stops the pump, in ability to empty downstream tanks (rail car traffic blockage or trackmobile failure), a leak or an operator that caught up in something else.

 

https://www.kptv.com/2023/01/03/two-men-charged-with-attacks-four-pierce-county-power-substations/

TACOMA, Wash. (KPTV) - Two men are expected to appear in U.S District Court in Tacoma Tuesday on charges related to attacks on four power substations that left thousands without power, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

On Christmas morning, four power substations in Pierce County were vandalized, impacting 14,000 households and businesses. On New Year’s Eve, the FBI arrested 32-year-old Matthew Greenwood and 40-year-old Jeremy Crahan.

The four substations that were targeted were the Graham and Elk Plain substations operated by Tacoma Power and the Kapowsin and Hemlock substations operated by Puget Sound Energy. The damage to just the Tacoma Power substations was estimated to be at least $3 million.

 

https://www.kptv.com/2023/01/03/two-men-charged-with-attacks-four-pierce-county-power-substations/

Looking forward to the back-story. Is it a couple of bubbas taking pot-shots, domestic terrorism or something in between?

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/press-release/file/1560621/download
24. of statement says they killed power to commit a burglary to steal a cash register. A set of common stupid criminals so far for this outage.

 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/press-release/file/1560621/download
24. of statement says they killed power to commit a burglary to steal a cash register. A set of common stupid criminals so far for this outage.

So basically, rodents again.

 

So basically, rodents again.

+1 for Meth heads dumb and dumber.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattl...erce-county-christmas-day-substation-attacks/

Brown said in an interview that the investigation into the case is ongoing. So far, he said, law enforcement officials have not turned up evidence to indicate there was a political motive driving the attack.

“There’s a lot more work to be done. Not surprising, sometimes people’s criminal activity is not the most logical or rational,” Brown said. “And without getting too far ahead of myself, I think that is probably the case here.”

Fisher said through tears that she is eight months pregnant and that Greenwood was out of work and scared about not having money to support their child. The couple had been evicted from another home earlier in December. And, after watching television reports of other attacks, Greenwood and Crahan came up with the plan to cut power from substations as cover for the theft, she said.

“He isn’t a terrorist. He is just trying to support me and the baby I’m going to have in three weeks,” Fisher said. “He wasn’t thinking about the damage that could be done to other people. He was desperate.”

The man was just trying to be a good father to his children at the trailer park.

 

they killed power to commit a burglary to steal a cash register. A set of common stupid criminals so far for this outage.

Stupid is an understatement.

“He isn’t a terrorist. He is just trying to support me and the baby I’m going to have in three weeks,” Fisher said. “He wasn’t thinking about the damage that could be done to other people. He was desperate.”

I wonder if getting a job ever occurred to him? He won't be of any use to his child from a jail cell.

Ron