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The Threat from a Physical Attack on our Electric Grid
Did you hear about the terrorist attack on our electric grid on April 16, 2013, at the Metcalf substation in rural California? This attack could have brought down the electric grid for Silicon Valley and central California. To be fair, it hasn’t been officially designated a terrorist attack yet by the FBI. At the same time, they are the ones who refuse to assign that designation to the Fort Hood shooting when Nadal Hasan (a self-proclaimed “Soldier of Allah” fighting for Jihad) shot up a military base while yelling “Allah Akbar” after discussing the potential attack online with a radical imam. That incident was clearly workplace violence in the eyes of the FBI. But I digress.... The Metcalf substation attack was originally reported as vandalism by the local media and most people moved on with their lives after getting the mental image of a couple good ol’ boys in a pickup truck firing pot shots at a transformer after having a few too many drinks on a Saturday night. But that was never the case.
When Jon Wellinghoff, then chairman of FERC, heard of the attack on the Metcalf substation, he immediately flew to California, taking with him experts from the Joint Warfare Analysis Center in Dahlgren, VA. Months later, after their report was finished, a very different picture came to light. Even still, outside of The Wall Street Journal and a report on Fox, very few media outlets covered this attack.
Here is a short breakdown of what transpired on April 23, 2013 in rural California:
12:58 am - Some person(s) removes a 75-pound manhole cover and enters an underground vault cutting very specific fiber optic cables to shut down AT&T’s telecommunication lines, effectively knocking out 911 service to the substation and the surrounding area. Next, they cut the cables in a different location for the internet service provider in the area, Level 3 Communications. They did this in such a manner as to prevent an easy repair, demonstrating a serious level of pre-planning and technical knowledge on the attacker’s behalf.
1:31 am - Security cameras at the Metcalf power station picked up what investigators believe was the waving of a flashlight signaling the start of the attack. The security cameras show bullets hitting the chain link fence as the attackers fired AK-47 rifles at the large oil-filled cooling tanks designed to keep the transformers from overheating.
1:41 am - An employee at the nearby Metcalf power plant hears the gunfire and places a 911 call to police.
1:45 am - With over 52,000 gallons of oil leaking from their holding tanks, the transformers start to overheat. This sets off an alarm at PG&E’s control center 90 miles away, allowing them to transfer and re-route power around the substation.
1:50 am - Another wave of a flashlight and the attack ceases.
1:51 am – Exactly one minute after the attack ends, police show up to investigate but find nothing out of the ordinary and can’t gain access to the site, so they leave.
As of today, here is what we know of the attacks:
1.17 mid-sized transformers were destroyed and it took nearly 15 million dollars and a month to repair the facility.
2.No one has ever been arrested and the FBI investigators don’t have a single suspect.
3.The attackers used AK-47s and there wasn’t a single fingerprint found on any of the shell casings left behind.
4.There was evidence that the location may have been scouted previously. Next to each pile of empty shell casings was a small, triangular-shaped pile of rocks similar to what Al Queda and the Taliban insurgents use for targeting packages and to show attackers where they can get the best shots for an ambush. On a side note, according to State Department data, between 1996 and 2006, terrorist organizations have been linked to 2,500 attacks on over 500 substations around the world. So let’s not kid ourselves that the Metcalf attack is a one-off scenario and the bad guys don’t have experience in knocking out power grids. Just look at how terrorists took down the electric grid for an entire country like Yemen.
5.If the attackers had chosen to fire at a certain part of the transformers instead of the cooling tanks or had lit the leaking oil on fire, the transformers could have arced and possibly exploded instead of slowly overheating. The specific location of what to aim for on the transformers to destroy them instantly has already been recklessly publicized in numerous articles online. This would have prevented the control center from having enough time to re-route the power around the failing substation and brought down the entire electric grid for Silicon Valley.
For almost a year after the attack, very little was reported or known about the investigation. Jon Wellinghoff continued his push to raise the alarm on this threat with the federal regulators, industry representatives, and Congress without much success. He ultimately resigned as Chairman of FERC later that year in frustration. Mr. Wellinghoff described the attack as “the most significant incident of domestic terrorism involving the grid that has ever occurred." When speaking to the WSJ, he said, "What keeps me awake at night is a physical attack that could take down the grid.... This is a huge problem." In prophetic fashion, only five months before the Metcalf attack, Wellinghoff told Bloomberg that “a coordinated physical attack is a very, very unsettling thing to me,” and “there are ways that a very few number of actors with very rudimentary equipment could take down large portions of our grid; I don’t think we have the level of physical security we need.”
Mark Johnson, former vice president of PG&E (the company that owns the Metcalf substation) reportedly told a private industry gathering in November 2013 that he believed this attack to be a dress-rehearsal for a larger attack. He said, “This wasn't an incident where Billy-Bob and Joe decided, after a few brewskis, to come in and shoot up a substation... This was an event that was well thought out, well planned and they targeted certain components.” Under pressure from PG&E, he later refused to discuss his opinion on the matter further when confronted by journalists covering the story.
In February of 2014, after almost a year with no arrests, Mr. Wellinghoff grew frustrated that not enough was being done and contacted The Wall Street Journal with more details about the Metcalf attack and how vulnerable the electric grid was from a physical attack. He was concerned that a larger attack could be in the works and he decided to go public because he felt it was a matter of national security and our country’s electrical substations were not being adequately protected.
Shortly after, an internal and confidential FERC analysis found its way into the hands of a reporter at The Wall Street Journal who was covering the story(for the record, I could not find any evidence that it was Mr. Wellinghoff who released it to them, but I have my suspicions). The WSJ reported that if as few as 9 of the larger, critical substations were attacked simultaneously, the entire Grid could be brought down for an extended period of time! Luckily, the WSJ was responsible enough not to publish the actual locations of the many “critical” substation locations (but consider, how hard would it be for cyber hackers to get their hands on a document that has been shown and discussed at numerous conferences around the country, especially when even the WSJ can obtain a copy). The memo from FERC also noted, “Destroy nine interconnection substations and a transformer manufacturer and the entire United States grid would be down for at least 18 months, probably longer.” What does 18 months without electricity look like to this country? I’ll discuss that later.
Most everything else you want to know about the vulnerability of our substations and HV transformers can be found in this congressional report: “Physical Security of the US Power Grid: High Voltage Transformer Substations.” I challenge you to read through it and you’ll see how unprepared we are for a physical attack on the grid, how easily it could be pulled off with the right knowledge and rudimentary weapons, and how long it would take us to recover. To say that nothing is being done to protect us from a physical attack on the electric grid would be an understatement. Please be sure to also watch "One Year after Metcalf," a must-watch video on the follow-up of the Metcalf attack and where we stand today. I’ll give you a clue; it’s not good!
There have been multiple other physical attacks against our electric grid, but the Metcalf attack was definitely the most threatening. Especially since the perpetrators are still at large and possibly planning another, larger attack using the plethora of information, data, and reports that have come out in the aftermath of the Metcalf attack. To be honest, most of the vandalism against the electric grid involves scrappers stealing copper and disgruntled ex-employees. There was even a case a few years back of a disgruntled man trying to pull down a high voltage transmission line with his tractor. But with the amount of information we now know about the Metcalf attack, it shouldn’t be lumped in with these vandalism cases. Even if the FBI refuses to label the Metcalf Attack as an official terrorist attack for political reasons, we Americans need to be aware of the threat and pressure Congress to act soon to harden the grid and protect the US from another, possibly larger, attack.
I’ll leave you with one more thought. When asked by The Blaze magazine about the Metcalf substation attack, former CIA Director James Woosley, who had been trying to raise the alarm to Congress for years about the vulnerability of the electric grid, had this to say: “People have an almost infinite capacity for not wanting to think about ugly things, and the utilities and companies who could be affected have demonstrated an extraordinary capacity of ostrich-like behavior.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself!
"The vulnerability of America's electric grid is a ticking time-bomb. The government knows that if that vulnerability is exploited by enemies or afflicted by space weather, we could experience the end of our nation as we know it. Many of our foes are aware of both the grid's susceptibility to attack and the potentially catastrophic consequences for this country and its people should it happen... Only the public is still largely in the dark about these dangers. If something is not done promptly to rectify the situation, our countrymen and women risk being kept in the dark permanently. We must secure the grid now."
- Frank Gaffney, President of the Center for Security Policy