Authorities in North Carolina and beyond are descending upon Moore County, North Carolina this weekend after a brazen act has left tens of thousands without power.
The strange and cruel act appears to have been a coordinated, multi-site attack on power substations in the region with damage so terrible that it could be several days before things get back to normal.
Over 40,000 Moore County, North Carolina residents were powerless on Sunday afternoon after two substations were taken out by gunfire on Saturday night, according to police.
Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields said in a Facebook post on Saturday that just after 7 p.m. on that night, several communities across the county began to experience power outages.
Duke Energy, which operates the power grid in the county, responded to at least two different substations and there was evidence of intentional vandalism at both, Fields said.
The attack was unprecedented.
“We faced something last night here in Moore County we have never faced before,” Fields said during a Facebook Live press conference on Sunday afternoon.
Twitter users have begun a great deal of wild speculation, (unsurprisingly), with many insinuating that the attack was the work of “domestic terrorists” working to prevent a local charity drag show from occurring.
Police even went so far as to interview one woman who claimed to have insider knowledge of the event on social media, only to then report back that they had no reason to believe this to be true.
