The attack on two power substations in Moore County, NC were not the first such attacks on energy facilities in the state. The North State Journal's Matt Mercer has details:

On Friday, Nov. 11, a property owned by the Carteret-Craven Electric Cooperative (CCEC) in the Jones County town of Maysville was damaged. More than 12,000 CCEC customers were without power for approximately two hours, according to a statement from the cooperative. 

“CCEC monitors its system constantly, and soon after the outage occurred, crews were dispatched to begin the restoration process and found that the Maysville substation had been vandalized. The Maysville substation remains off-line, but CCEC is fully able to serve all of its members through other substations,” a Nov. 11 statement reads. 

The total cost of the damage was expected to exceed $500,000 and insurance investigators are still working to determine the extent of the damage. The cooperative said the vandals damaged transformers causing them to leak coolant oil.  

Jake Joplin, CCEC CEO and general manager, stated that the cooperative “condemns this senseless act of vandalism.”  

The Jones County Sheriff’s Department and State Bureau of Investigation were investigating the vandalism. 

Much like the attack in Moore County, the attacks occurred close to military installations in the state. Maysville sits 33 miles from Camp Lejeune 41 miles from MCAS Cherry Point – two Marine Corps bases with nearly 50,000 active duty and reserve members enlisted. 

Moore County sits just west of Fort Bragg, the largest military base in the United States. The substation attacks were first reported in Carthage, the Moore County seat which sits approximately 33 miles from the Army base.