Questioned by Newsweek in a lengthy article about the fragility of America’s power grid and the attacks it has been facing by far-right groups for several months already, Michael Mabee doesn’t beat around the bush: Such physical damage could have apocalyptic consequences for the country.
“If enough electrical transformers were destroyed in a coordinated attack, explains the former US Army general and power vulnerability expert, it would have long aftermath, widespread power outages, and death tolls in the tens, hundreds, millions.”
Michael Mabee isn’t the only one worried, and has pretty good reason to fear such a conspiracy against the US power grid. In the first eight months of 2022, she was physically assaulted 107 times, more than in the previous decade.
In early December, one of these machine gun attacks on two substations in Moore County, North Carolina, left 40,000 residents in the dark and cold for several days. A few weeks later, a similar sabotage took place in Pierce County, Washington, where 14,000 people lost power on Christmas Day.
Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Dakota, California: These types of attacks, often against complex “substations” that are long and expensive to replace, are on the rise in the United States.
And knowing that America’s power grid whets the appetites of external and hostile nations, we don’t have to go to Moscow and its hackers to locate the threats.
Therefore, according to Newsweek and certain experts interviewed by the media, these attacks are often the work of far-right “homegrown” groups secretly sharing information and tips on potential targets and shutting down the most effective means of attacking them, and celebrating the attacks on obscure web forums that take place everywhere.
In the case of this latest series of attacks, Newsweek cites the “Accelerationists,” movements awash in neo-Nazism and white supremacy. They aim for the downfall of current civilization or try to start a “race war” like these three men who were arrested before doing anything.
domino
Everyone knows the fragility of the American network and understands that multiple small, well-placed attacks can cause catastrophic damage through a domino effect. You have an example: the Great Northeast Blackout of 2003, described as the largest energy disaster in the history of the continent.
55 million people across the United States and Canada were plunged into darkness – it took just one tree in a single line to bring down a large chunk of the national power grid.
More recently, but for different reasons, the huge Texas power outage of 2001 or the massive disaster averted during the “Snowstorm of the Century” may have served as a reminder of the power the wealthiest and most advanced country in the world relies on was dependent on the grid, poorly designed, poorly protected, lacking resilience and adaptability in the event of a fault.
After the great blackout of 2003, Congress passed various laws to urge the utilities, which power the thousands of electric utilities that dot a country completely open to any competition, to verify their copy. Newsweek explains it: It’s inadequate, very largely inadequate, as are their efforts to protect the net as a whole from these scattered attacks that could lead to a global catastrophe.
As summarized by Thomas Popik of the Foundation for Resilient Societies, which works to ensure these issues are better addressed, America is playing with fire and its end.
“If it takes a major attack to get the attention of lawmakers and regulators, America may not get a second chance,” he said. This is the reality: the first great attack could be the last great attack because America would be on its knees. The lights would go out for them.”