Posted on 10/12/2004 5:59:11 AM PDT by Mike Fieschko
Oak Creek - Stopping short of calling it a terrorist act, officials said Sunday that the weekend collapse of two electric transmission towers was caused by someone purposely removing bolts that held the towers in place."It has clearly been determined that bolts have been tampered with. That is what caused these things to come down," Oak Creek Police Chief Tom Bauer said during a Sunday afternoon news conference near the site where the two towers fell, knocking out electricity to 17,000 customers, including Mitchell International Airport.
Bauer would not say what specific evidence officials found Sunday afternoon to lead them to that conclusion, nor did he say how many bolts had been removed.
The bolts in question either held legs of the tower into a concrete base or connected parts of the tower to each other.
The towers, located just east of railroad tracks that are east of S. 13th St. near W. College Ave., fell sometime around 5 p.m. Saturday.
As the 80-foot towers collapsed, they brought down at least one nearby power line, which was still draped across the tracks Sunday.
A southbound Canadian Pacific freight train stopped on the tracks about 75 yards north of the downed lines. It was still on the tracks Sunday.
Bauer said the tracks were expected to be cleared and opened to rail traffic sometime Sunday night.
FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Troy said his agency has issued a general warning to municipalities to watch for tampering with infrastructure and that FBI offices nationwide had been alerted.
Bauer and Troy declined to call the incident a terrorist act.
"It's too early to tell," Bauer said.
Similar to earlier incidents
In February, a 62-year-old Spokane, Wash., man was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison for removing bolts in legs of about 20 electrical transmission towers in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho.
The man, Michael Devlyn Poulin, said he tampered with the towers to show how vulnerable America is to terrorist attack.
Troy said transmission towers had been targeted by other people in other regions as well. Maripat Blankenheim, a spokeswoman for Waukesha-based American Transmission Co., which owns the towers, said company workers already had physically inspected all towers in the Oak Creek area.
She said officials would discuss today whether a statewide inspection process would be conducted. On Sunday, she did not know the last time the collapsed towers had been physically inspected but said they had been inspected by air this past spring.
Inspections of towers are made on foot every four years, and three times a year by air, she said. The Oak Creek towers were inspected by helicopter this past spring, but a flyover inspection would not have detected any missing bolts, she said.
American Transmission owns the towers that support about 9,000 miles of electric transmission lines in Wisconsin and Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Blankenheim said.
The towers that fell Saturday had stood there since 1955.
Blankenheim and Troy said bolts were removed from another tower in April 2003 in the Town of Lisbon. But Blankenheim said it was believed those were removed as part of a prank and not as an act of sabotage.
She couldn't explain what led investigators to that conclusion, however.
Blankenheim said she didn't know how long it would be before the towers were put back up because investigators must clear the scene before crews can begin work on the structures.
She said the work could take as few as two or three days once investigators are finished at the scene. Stopping train was key
Authorities said it was fortunate the train was able to stop before hitting the wires.
Crews worked on the downed lines for a "significant amount of time," finally getting them grounded about 4:30 a.m., Bauer said.
Canadian Pacific Railway spokeswoman Laura Baenen declined to say how many railroad customers were affected.
"Because it's a police matter at this point, we're just going to have to refer everything to the FBI and local police," she said.
The one train stranded on the line was the only freight train affected, she said, adding that other trains scheduled to run on that line were rerouted.
Two Amtrak trains were affected Saturday and all seven Sunday trains operating between Chicago and Milwaukee were canceled, said Marcie Golgoski, an Amtrak spokeswoman in Washington, D.C. She said Amtrak was awaiting word from Canadian Pacific on when service would be resumed.
Shari Kaplan-Paler and her husband, Ron Paler, were traveling back to Milwaukee from Chicago on an Amtrak train when the towers fell, forcing their train to stop in Sturtevant in Racine County.
"We were told we couldn't go to Milwaukee, but they never said why until after people had already gotten off the train," said Kaplan-Paler, who lives in Bayside. "We eventually were told there were wires on the track and they couldn't move until they were removed."
Kaplan-Paler said it was about 7 p.m. when passengers were told by conductors that arrangements were being made to get buses to come and take them to Milwaukee.
"But they said they were having trouble finding drivers and couldn't guarantee when we would be picked up. There was no food, no beverages and it was dark," she said.
"Little by little, people started calling people in Chicago and Milwaukee to come rescue them," Kaplan-Paler said. At about 9 p.m., Kaplan-Paler called a friend in Racine who picked them up and took them to the Milwaukee Amtrak station.
It was nearly 10 p.m. when they got home to Bayside, she said.
Golgoski said everyone who was on board the two affected trains was offered alternate transportation, such as chartered buses.
Part of the solution is to remove the bolts dolts that said this.
A simple weld of the bolt to the base of the tower would prevent pranksters from removing them.
DING DING DING DING!!! We have a winner!!!!!
Its not like its a simple process to remove these things anyway, so a weld won't hurt.
This wasn't a prank. This was eco-terrorism. These towers transmit power from a nearby coal-fired powerplant that WEenergies is trying to expand over the objections of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if an activist in town for the election was doing a little "freelancing" over the weekend. There are several motels within walking distance of these towers. If I were investigating, I would be looking at who was staying at these motels over the past few days.
A simple weld of the bolt to the base of the tower would prevent pranksters from removing them.
I was thinking the same thing but then wondered how much sway the towers are subjected to (along w/ temperature extremes) & if the welds would crack.
For how many years have "funny" grid outtages happened on ELECTION DAYS throughout America? Lessee... 9 states were affected during one particularly rancorous election... electricity came back on -- VOILA! "DEMOCRATS WERE AHEAD".
Been expecting this for a loooooong time. This was a favorite tactic of the Red Brigade when I was living in Italy twenty years ago. We need to get cameras and security on our power towers now because they are going to become regular targets sooner or later. They will unbolt them, blow them up, push them over ... I've seen it happen in Italy and it is very disruptive to an electrically dependent society.
These a-holes better act soon, because within a couple years there will be literally dozens of cameras watching every tower, and the access roads to them.
(steely)
What would such an incident do in a couple of cities/areas where the election will be especially touchy? And where the voting is all electronic?
Are there plans for back up paper ballots?
It would be interesting to research who at FR persistently posts that backouts and train derailments are an everyday occurance, and that the is nothing to see here, move on, move on...
That would be because it is much easier to park under a bridge and collect Homelam3 Suxurity overtime for "guarding infrastructure" than it is to walk a powerline right of way.
A bead on the threads would lock the nut on, and not weaken the bolt.
That makes sense. I was making it too complicated--thinking to weld the nut to the bolt.
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