Authorities in Moore County, North Carolina, announced a mandatory curfew after 40,000 residents were left without power when two substations got damaged by gunfire on Saturday night.
Moore County officials announced they would implement the mandatory curfew starting at 9 pm and ending at 5 am on Sunday.
During a Sunday news conference, Ronnie Fields, Moore County Sheriff, said that the situation was dire and county officials had formulated a plan for the night and that it might take a few days for the power to get restored.
Authorities decided that a curfew was best for protecting citizens and businesses during the nights that power would be out.
The county went into a state of emergency on Sunday at 4 pm as law enforcement and city officials started investigating the unfortunate incident and working on restoring the substations. According to Sheriff Fields, police would provide the substations with security.
Authorities will investigate the power outage as a criminal occurrence after they found signs that the stations had been vandalized at various stations.
Governor Roy Cooper took to Twitter to condemn the incident saying that the attack on critical infrastructure was a serious and intentional crime, and asked state and federal authorities to investigate the matter and bring the people responsible to justice.
Sheriff Fields said the people responsible fired several rounds at the substations. He called the attack “targeted.”
The sheriff did not clarify if the attack was domestic terrorism, and the police have not identified any suspects. He did not give a motive for the attack, saying that even though they still did not know the reason for the attack, the people responsible knew precisely what they were doing.
He said that no person or group had taken responsibility for the attack.
One of the sources claimed that one of the gates at the substations looked as if it had been unhinged. The source also said they were experiencing increased emergency calls since the power outage because traffic lights were not working, causing the number of vehicle accidents to spike.
The outage has also strained emergency services as hospitals have to operate without power.
Moore County officials opened a shelter on Sunday afternoon at the county’s sports complex, helped by Red Cross.
The outages, which began shortly after 7 pm on Saturday across the county, will cost taxpayers a pretty penny as the damage sustained by the two stations is estimated to be in the millions.
Duke Energy announced that the restoration of the stations could take a few days and that the company would be working tirelessly to get power restored quickly.
The company’s Principal Communication Manager, Jeff Brooks, said the intentional attack had damaged several pieces of equipment, and they would have to replace them.
The power outage also prompted officials to shut down schools in the county on Monday. In a tweet shared on Sunday, the Moore County School District said they would make an announcement on Monday about the status of schools for Tuesday.
Rumors started circulating that the attack was an attempt to shut down a drag show, but Sheriff Fields said they had not found evidence tying it to the show.
The FBI is involved in the investigation due to the suspicion of terrorism.
