“You would be shocked how few are lying around on the continent. They’re perishable and face the same risks from attacks that in-use transformers face.”
NOTHING would shock me when it comes to our stupidity. But even so, transformers do fail but I don’t ever remember a similar event taking 5 days to restore power.
My suspicion is that they are purposely stalling the repairs, in order to greatly increase the suffering, which would then be used to put away the right-wingers* who shot up the substation, for life.
*like gun shootings, whoever did it will be called a right-winger.