file photo by Boyd Loving
Attack on electric grid raises alarm
Damage to power station in shooting last year prompts worries over terrorism.
February 6, 2014, 5:55 p.m.
Shooters armed with assault rifles and some knowledge of electrical utilities have prompted new worries on the vulnerability of California’s vast power grid.
A 2013 attack on an electric substation near San Jose that nearly knocked out Silicon Valley’s power supply was initially downplayed as vandalism by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the facility’s owner. Gunfire from semiautomatic weapons did extensive damage to 17 transformers that sent grid operators scrambling to avoid a blackout.
But this week, a former top power regulator offered a far more ominous interpretation: The attack was terrorism, he said, and if circumstances had been just a little different, it could have been disastrous.
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-grid-terror-20140207,0,5892405.story#ixzz2spKU6ZnZ
