Power grids6/10/2023 ![]() ![]() RASCOE: That's Erroll Southers, professor of national and homeland security at the University of Southern California. So cash, you know, water, first aid supplies - all those things that you would need in the event of a natural disaster are the things you would need if we lost the grid due to some man-enabled attack. And again, Ayesha, what you're speaking to now is just general emergency preparedness that every American should be engaged in anyway, whether it's a fire, a flood, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, those emergency supplies, those generators, enough food for a week - cash, by the way, because one of the things that people don't realize is when the grid goes down, the ATMs go down as well. RASCOE: Are there ways that residents could prepare themselves in case something happens or, you know, a similar event happen - like what happened in North Carolina? So what I'm saying to you is that it's almost literally impossible to protect against this vulnerability, and these attackers know that. So now you have to decide if we're going to put up a perimeter, how far away do we put it? Now you're putting a perimeter in a space that you don't even control or own. Fifteen hundred meters works out to some - over 4,000 feet. A 50-caliber rifle has a range of 1,500 meters. SOUTHERS: The average sniper rifle has a range of about 600 meters. RASCOE: You know, as someone who has been studying this issue, like, what are some ways that substations could be fortified against attack? Can you put, you know, some type of structure around the substations so - making them harder to shoot? The fact that this happened now, close to the week of the midterms, after we had a contested election, and in this case of North Carolina, being in close proximity to a drag show that was happening that week nearby - in a county nearby - so all of those things put together spell out to someone like me that there's a concentrated effort here to take advantage of the situation, whether it's the political climate or other things that they can leverage to recruit and bring, if you will, attention to their movement. I can tell you for a fact that the Department of Homeland Security and other protective agencies in the country right now are certainly paying attention to this because, as we say in the intelligence community, coincidence takes a lot of planning. SOUTHERS: I don't know what you could do to raise their level of concern until they become victimized because that's just the general culture of this country. RASCOE: How concerned should the average American be? And then they could go out, meaning these adversaries, go out and take advantage of that chaos and wreak havoc across the country. So it puts this nation in a state of chaos. And some even went as far as to suggest that they could trigger a race war. When this first started to come about years ago from extremist groups, the notion was that they hoped they could trigger a response by the government of invoking, in some instances, martial law. So what people start to do is lose confidence in the system. And you have no heat, and you have no light. So now I've shut your power off, and it's December. The whole notion here is that general feeling against - of those individuals who are against the United States government is the notion that the government can't protect you as a citizen or resident of this country. Is there a reason to believe that these attacks on critical infrastructure are acts of extremism? ![]() And you worked in counterterrorism at the FBI. RASCOE: So, I mean, the investigations in North Carolina are ongoing. And by the time they do, the attackers are already gone. And many of these places are very remote, and so officers have to get there. But because you're looking at a space, in terms of acreage across the country, that's so large, it's extremely challenging to monitor and protect. ![]() ![]() It has about 6,400 power plants across the country, some 55,000 substations and over 450,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines serviced by 3,000 companies. Why are gunmen able to take out power grids so easily? There notably was an attack on a California substation back in 2013. RASCOE: There was an attack in North Carolina that we mentioned. Welcome to the program.ĮRROLL SOUTHERS: Thank you for having me. We're joined now by Erroll Southers, professor of national and homeland security at the University of Southern California. are gaining more attention in light of the attack, including ones in Washington and Oregon last month. Threats to electrical power grids in the U.S. Thousands in North Carolina have regained power in their homes after a gunman's attack on an electrical substation left residents without access to power, heat and, in some cases, water for days. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |