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A county in central North Carolina where about 45,000 people were without electricity declared a state of emergency and was under curfew on Sunday night, after two electric substations were damaged by gunfire the night before in what officials called an “intentional” attack.
The outages across Moore County, roughly 90 miles east of Charlotte, began just after 7 p.m. on Saturday, the Moore County Sheriff’s Office said. Officials said the power could be out until as late as Thursday. It was not clear if the curfew, which started at 9 p.m. on Sunday and was to last until 5 a.m. on Monday, would be extended.
At a news conference on Sunday, the Moore County sheriff, Ronnie Fields, said that the attack appeared targeted but did not provide further details on a motive or suspect. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation were also looking into the attack, he said.
State Senator Tom McInnis cited below-freezing temperatures and dark roads for the need for the curfew.
“It is going to be very, very, very dark, and it’s going to be chilly tonight,” he said at the news conference. “And we don’t need to have anyone out on the streets — that is the reason for our curfew this evening.”
The senator said the gunfire that damaged the electrical equipment was a “terrible act, and it appears to be intentional, willful and malicious.”
Responding to questions about whether the vandalism was related to a drag show in the area that had faced backlash, Sheriff Fields said he was unaware of any connection, but that the authorities were investigating all possibilities.
“Is it possible? Yes,” he said. “Anything’s possible. But we’ve not been able to tie anything back to the drag show.”
Lauren Mathers, the executive director of Sandhills PRIDE, the L.G.B.T.Q. organization that produced the show, said that while the group had received violent threats leading up to the event, none indicated any kind of planned attack on the region’s power grid.
“We did not receive any specific threats that would lead me to be able to say to you, there’s a correlation,” Ms. Mathers said on Sunday, adding that although it was the fourth time the group had put on the show, they had never received such pushback. “Drag shows in general have come under attack recently.”
She said that the show, which was held Saturday evening at an old movie theater in Southern Pines, about 80 miles southwest of Raleigh, was about 40 minutes in when the power suddenly went out.
Members of the audience took out their phones to light the room as one of the performers continued singing a cappella, before erupting into a spontaneous rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Ms. Mathers said it was “a beautiful moment.”
But the show’s organizers soon realized the vast reach of the power outage, she added, and quickly called it off to ensure everyone’s safety.
As utility crews began responding to the affected substations, “evidence was discovered that indicated that intentional vandalism had occurred at multiple sites,” the sheriff’s office said in an earlier statement. Deputies were then deployed to various locations to provide security. |
