Lose power in Bellingham? You may have been a theft victim and not know it
If you were one of the 1,353 Puget Sound Energy customers in Bellingham who woke up Monday, March 21, without power or were late to work because your alarm clock was just blinking at you, you were likely a victim of theft and just didn’t know it.
PSE was alerted to the power outage at 3:57 a.m. March 21, spokesperson Andrew Padula told The Bellingham Herald in an email, and service crews arrived in the area of Donovan Avenue and 21st Street to find that the wire was missing.
You read that right — not down, but missing.
“It appeared someone caused the line to be de-energized and then proceeded to take down the wire for the copper that it contained,” Padula wrote. “Our crews had to replace 150 feet of wire before they could get everyone’s power back on.”
Though crews were able to re-route some power while crews were working to replace the missing wire, restoring power for approximately 914 customers by 5:21 a.m., it took until 9:21 a.m. for all work to be completed, Padula reported.
It was not a isolated incident, both PSE and the Bellingham Police Department said, as thieves are looking to cash in on copper found in the lines.
Scrap copper can be worth as much as $5 per pound, according to moneymetals.com.
That’s just enough to entice thieves, and they’ve apparently been busy recently, particularly in Bellingham’s Happy Valley neighborhood. In addition to Monday’s incident:
▪ On March 16, a PSE representative called the Bellingham Police Department to report ongoing issues with copper wire theft from four different power and utility poles within Bellingham, Lt. Claudia Murphy told The Herald in an email. Murphy reported that “several thousand” feet of wire was taken and the damage was estimated at $10,000.
▪ A Tuesday, March 22, entry in the Bellingham Police Department’s incident log reported that a large amount of copper wire was located in a burn pit in the 2900 block of Donovan Avenue. “Appeared suspect was attempting to burn casing off of wire,” the entry noted, adding that no suspect was located.
▪ A second log entry Tuesday said officers documents ongoing copper thefts along Donovan Avenue.
▪ At 9 a.m. Thursday, March 24, officers were contacted about power thefts in the area in the 2800 block of Donovan Avenue, according to the incident log.
▪ A second incident in the log from Thursday reported that another power line was cut to steal the copper line from a power pole in the 2100 block of Donovan Avenue.
“Vandalism in the Bellingham area has been a problem recently. We’ve had four separate instances of vandalism in this one particular part of town,” Padula wrote. “However, this is a problem we see throughout our service area with some areas hit harder than others.”
Each incident remains under investigation, Padula said, but the response to each is different and brings PSE labor and material costs.
“The vast majority of vandalism to electrical equipment causes power outages because it is rare that thieves target infrastructure that is no longer in use, and we physically remove and ‘retire’ wire and equipment not in use,” Padula wrote.
But, Padula said, stealing live power lines is not a particularly safe way to make a quick buck.
“Anytime anyone comes into contact with a live wire can cause severe injuries or death,” he wrote.
PSE works with police to help solve the crimes, Padula wrote, asking anyone who sees suspicious activity around power lines or electrical equipment to report it as quickly as possible.
And as an added deterrent, Padula reported that the wire that was used to replace the stolen section in Monday’s incident does not contain any copper.
For the record, a second power outage that impacted the Barkley, Sunset and Sunnyland areas of Bellingham later Monday morning (from approximately 10:43 a.m. to 12:25 p.m.) was not caused by wire theft. Padula previously reported that crews determined a squirrel had gotten into electrical equipment and caused the outage, which impacted 1,876 customers.
