14,000 Hit by Blackouts in Washington State After Burglars Break Into Three Power Substations

No suspects have been detained yet, and it remains unclear whether all three Tacoma substations were vandalized by the same person or people or if the burglaries are related.

Police have opened probes into three burglaries at the three power substations in the port city of Tacoma, Washington, which left about 14,000 customers without electricity on Christmas morning.

The Pierce County Sheriff's Department reported that the first incident occurred at a substation on 46th Avenue belonging to Tacoma Public Utilities (TPU), which was attacked at around 5:30 a.m. local time on Sunday.

Nothing was stolen, but equipment was vandalized, which led to outages in the area, according to police.

Later that morning, police responded to a call about a burglary at a TPU on 224th Street, which also saw forced entry and damage to the equipment. Like in the 46th Avenue incident, nothing was taken from the scene.

The third burglary took place at a substation belonging to Puget Sound Energy in the early morning on Sunday. Police said when they arrived on the scene, they found "the fenced area was broken into and the equipment vandalized," similar to the other two substations.

The incidents come after at least 45,000 people were hit by a blackout earlier this month after someone opened fire on a substation in North Carolina, in what police described as a “deliberate” attack, which is still being investigated.