Officials in Oregon and western Washington are reviewing information they have on six attacks on utility substations since mid-November, fearing that they were initial attempts to try to disrupt power to an extent similar to a recent terrorist attack in North Carolina, Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.
The attacks against facilities of Portland General Electric, the Bonneville Power Administration, Cowlitz County Public Utility District and Puget Sound Energy involved firearms shooting to knock out key equipment at the sites which would disable the equipment and cause a similar blackout to the one that hit Moore County, North Carolina, leaving at least 40,000 households without power for up to four days.
The attacks in the Northwest hit in the weeks prior to the North Carolina attacks, but it’s unknown if there’s a direct connection between the two or if the two were coincidental and planned using the same playbook. Western Washington and Oregon are frequently the targets of attacks from white nationalist and separatist extremist groups based in neighboring Idaho.