The United States recorded 274 significant incidents of vandalism or deliberate damage to parts of the nation's power grid in the last three years, according to the Wall Street Journal. But one particular event last year raised the specter of domestic terrorism felling our electric supply.
Power companies have devoted resources to preventing cyber attacks, but the shooting of a California substation highlighted our vulnerability to a conventional assault. We must address this serious threat and commit ourselves to rethinking how to bolstering protection of our power system.
One day after the Boston Marathon bombing, an unknown number of perpetrators attacked an electric substation near San Jose, Calif., taking it down for 27 days. A former chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission called it "the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred."
The attackers cut nearby telephone lines and Internet cables before shooting for 19 minutes at the transformers at a larger substation serving the Silicon Valley area. As law enforcement arrived, the shooters slipped away, but not before their surgical strike knocked out 17 of the machines funneling power to millions of people.
The incident justifiably alarmed Jon Wellinghoff, who served as head of the FERC at the time. He was among the energy officials who have expressed concern it was a test run for a larger attempt to fell our power network.
The nation's electric grid is actually three separate systems, dependent on a small number of powerful substations to distribute power across the country, and its vulnerability is without question. Any resident of Hampton Roads knows even a weak tropical system or high winds can snap poles and fell lines, knocking out power for days.
While weather is a problem, the flaws are much more widespread and profound.
Recall the massive 2003 outage in which a combination of human and computer errors, most minor, contributed to 45 million people in eight states losing without power for as long as two days. Its economic impact was pegged at $6 billion.
Power companies have instead shored up their defenses in the likely scenario of an online attack. They report a steady barrage of attempts which have thus far failed. But last year's incident illuminates a new possibility of a conventional attack which targets the mostly defenseless substations.
A recent FERC report highlighted the extent of the threat, finding the entire grid could be felled by knocking out just nine of the 55,000 electric-transmission substations nationwide. It concluded the worst-case scenario of a well-planned, well-executed assault could shut down electric power for as long as 18 months.
That is because the transformers themselves are enormous contraptions requiring a year to build and weeks to deliver. Accoding to the Journal, they cost between $1 million and $8 million to produce and are constructed to fit each particular substation. As a result, few are kept at the ready in case of disaster.
The California facility was protected by cursory security — chain-link fences and a few security cameras. Substations are often located in remote areas where an emergency response takes time. It allows attackers to avoid detection or capture.
Some power companies took note of last year's attack and are investing in security. For instance, Dominion Power, which serves most homes and businesses in Hampton Roads, plans to spend between $300 million and $500 million in the next seven years to protect its equipment and network.
But, as we learned from the 2003 blackout, the nation is slow to wake from its slumber. The nation's outdated, flawed and vulnerable power grid could face the threat of domestic terrorism. We ignore that risk at our peril.