On April 16, 2013 a small arms attack was committed against the Pacific Gas and Electric Metcalf Power Transmission Station near San Jose, California. The perpetrators fired on seventeen electrical transformers causing millions of dollars in damage. Fortunately there was little impact to the station’s operations at the time, or to electrical service throughout the region.
The attack did inflict a significant amount of damage to the station, and it took several weeks to make repairs. According to officials, with a little luck the attack very well “could have” resulted in a major long term disruption to the electrical power service to a wide area.
The investigation revealed that this appeared to be a well-planned, coordinated attack. Video surveillance recorded what appeared to be “flashlight signals” that were used between individuals to start the attack, and then to end it. Evidence such as shell casings recovered at the scene failed to provide any fingerprints.
A former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said at the time that experts from the military offered the opinion that the assault looked like a "professional job". He went on to describe the attack as "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred". But according to the FBI they didn’t believe that any terrorist organizations were responsible.
Many counterterrorism experts dispute the FBI’s official findings of there being no terrorism connection in this attack. This writer included. What occurred at the Metcalf facility near San Jose was not just a case of vandalism. It wasn’t just a bunch of guys out on a lark with a case of beer, plinking away.
Sometime after midnight on May 14, 2013 a state trooper on patrol at the main reservoir providing water for a wide region outside of Boston, Massachusetts spotted two cars parked near the Quabbin Reservoir entrance. The trooper investigated further and encountered seven people, five men and two women walking from the water back to their cars. Questioned about their presence at this location after normal hours, they claimed to be chemical engineers and recent college graduates whose interest in the reservoir was purely professional. The trooper’s investigation also revealed that they were from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore.
The group was briefly detained at the scene while the trooper ran a record check. Once the results showed no criminal record or other derogatory information and the only offense was simple ‘trespassing’, the trooper elected to allow them to leave after also checking their vehicles and finding nothing illegal or suspicious. This incident followed the Boston Marathon terrorist attack by just a month.
On December 3, 2022 unknown individual(s) attacked two Duke Energy electrical power substations in Moore County, North Carolina, causing significant damage and disrupting electrical service to thousands. Authorities have released little information on the attack but according to Sheriff Ronnie Fields, whomever is responsible "knew exactly what they were doing to cause the damage and cause the outage that they did." The FBI is also assisting in this investigation.
Has Terrorism reared its ugly head once again in our homeland? Considering the chaos on our southwest border as a result of the Biden (Obama) Administration’s ‘open border’ policies, especially the hundred thousand “got-aways” that the Border Patrol is estimating and who we know nothing about nor their intentions, it should be a concern for all Americans.
ISIS, which had been destroyed as a viable terrorist organization by the Trump Administration but has reconstituted itself since Joe Biden was sworn in, as well as the continuing threat from Al Qaeda, have both expressed their intentions to attack the United States. In addition, the Iranian terrorist proxy Hezbollah also maintains a large presence in Central and South America. Iran continues to be the world’s foremost sponsor of terrorism, with “the Great Satan” America as their primary target.
Our infrastructure, particularly our electrical grid is old, basically unprotected, and very vulnerable. Joe Biden has placed America and Americans at great risk. And all as part of Barack Obama’s efforts to “fundamentally transform” the United State. That should worry every single American.
As Joe Biden was preparing to leave for a photo op in Arizona on Tuesday he was asked why he wasn’t visiting the border during this visit. Joe Biden responded that “there are more important things to do”. What could be more important than protecting Americans from potential terrorist attacks as a result of his (Obama’s) open border policy?
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