Our communications infrastructure is woefully vulnerable. Some years ago a guy digging for metal he found using his metal detector cut the main cable link for the MOLINK (Moscow-US Hot Line teletype system). It took weeks to find the problem. Another example is the folks who shoot the big insulators on high voltage interstate electric lines. If one "leg" drops from a broken insulator, the entire circuit can collapse in a cascading effect.
Here's another one: Copper thieves opened the gate to an electrical sub-station to steal coils of wire. They were both electrocuted, but their burned corpses (resembling a piece of random meat dropped into a BBQ grill) shorted out an entire area of the state causing around 100,000 homes and businesses to be without electricity. It took over two weeks to fix the problem, since a "HAZMAT" team was required by law to first go in and disinfect the area where the crispy critters died. (nota bene: when extremely high voltage electrocutes a person or animal, the body explodes due the the rapid boiling of internal fluids and semi-solids).
Yeah, the copper thieves are also often responsible for the light rail being down in major metros since they cut and stole a large chunk of line.
They are destroying critical infrastructure. May as well be considered domestic (or international) terrorists depending on their citizen status.
(post is archived)