Duke Energy (NYSE:DUK) has completed restoration efforts for the 45,000 customers in Moore County, N.C., who lost power over the weekend after unknown attackers damaged two substations with rifles, and the utility is now offering up to $25,000 to help catch those responsible, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The state and county have each matched Duke’s offer, according to a statement North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper released on Wednesday, meaning that up to $75,000 are available for information leading to the culprits’ arrest. Meanwhile, the FBI also issued a release seeking information on the incident.

The restoration went more quickly than expected; on Monday, Duke was still estimating that it would need until Thursday to bring all customers back online. (See Duke: NC Outages from Attacks May Last Until Thursday.) Duke spokesperson Jeff Brooks told RTO Insider in an email that service was restored “to all customers capable of receiving power” by 6 p.m. Wednesday, more than 24 hours earlier than anticipated.

But as Moore County’s government and businesses returned to normal Wednesday night, the threat of violence against the bulk power system remained on investigators’ minds after shots were fired near Duke’s Wateree Hydro Station in Ridgeway, S.C. According to the incident report by the Kershaw County Sheriff’s Office, Duke employees working outside the facility heard shots fired ab 4:30 p.m.; they then saw a car driving away with a man hanging out the window holding a rifle.

The Duke Energy substations in Carthage (left) and West End, N.C., that unidentified attackers shot on Dec. 3, leading to the loss of power for around 45,000 customers in Moore County. | FBI

 

Deputies reported finding shell casings on the road, but in an area where the hydro plant could not be seen. When they went farther down the road in the direction the employees said the car had driven from, the plant was “extremely visible and easily accessible,” but no shell casings were found in this area.

The Sheriff’s Office said that it is conducting a joint investigation with the State Law Enforcement Division and the FBI in light of the Moore County incident. However, Sheriff Lee Boan emphasized that police currently have “no reason to believe this shooting incident has anything to do with an attack on the hydro station.”

Duke said that no injuries or property damage are known to have occurred from the Ridgeway shooting, and no outages were reported either. The utility said it is cooperating “closely” with the FBI on the investigation and “will leave it to investigators to classify or compare the nature of the incident at this time.”

No Culprits Identified in NC Outages

The Moore County outages began around 7 p.m. Saturday night near the town of Carthage and quickly spread through most of the county. Sheriff’s deputies and Duke personnel discovered “extensive damage” to two substations caused by multiple shots from firearms; the FBI on Thursday identified the substations as being located in Carthage and West End, about 10 miles apart; one resident living near the West End substation told local media he heard about 20 shots that night.

As of Thursday law enforcement officials had reported no suspects in the North Carolina attacks. Investigators are reportedly focusing on bullets and casings found near the substations in hopes of identifying the types of rifles used.

Brooks said Duke is aware that the outages have been “challenging [and] unsettling” for the utility’s customers. He emphasized that Duke maintains “multiple layers of physical and electronic security, as well as people and processes that work together to … restore power when disruptions occur.”

“Security is an evolutionary process, and we are always working to improve our strategy and stay ahead of the next threat, whether it be weather, physical or cyber in nature,” Brooks added. “We will take learnings from this incident and apply it to our security strategy going forward. And our ongoing grid improvement strategy focuses heavily on strengthening the grid to make it more resistant to outages, and more resilient through the use of automated restoration processes, self-healing technology and a comprehensive outage response plan, to restore power faster when disruptions occur.”