Coming to a neighborhood near you... Coming to a neighborhood near you...
Re: copper theft - it’s happened before.’
In an old section of Cleveland, on a weekend some 30 years ago, copper thieves disconnected and stole several hundred feet of copper conductors off of the poles on which it was strung. The power supply was to a small industrial outfit located on that street, and there were no homes nearby, so the odds of getting spotted were minimal.
It’s pretty obvious that the thieves had some experience in how the distribution system worked. The stuff was old - there’s not a lot of copper out there on poles any more since you can get a lot more capacity with much lighter wire using aluminum conductors with a steel core for strength.
We also had an entity try to steal some 11,000 volt energized underground copper cables feeding a vacant industrial site. Our company was in the habit of keeping the lines powered up even though there was no customer - mostly to ensure that the cables were not short-circuited, and perhaps to deter theft. The guy somehow lived, sued the power company, and lost in court.
In Florida it is residential and small business central air units... sitting on a convenient pad just outside the building - rich with copper fittings! Wake up in the morning to discover your central air unit has no coolant and no copper coolant connections = $$ thousands in repairs. 😬