Peggy Noonan, a nationally syndicated columnist, has written a frightening op-ed piece featured in today's NY Post. I'm surprised the months old incident hadn't surfaced until now. Here are highlights of the piece, which in part will be edited, put into my own words in a single paragraph:
"The heretofore unknown story happened April 16. There was an armed assault on a power station in California. Just after midnight some person or persons slipped into an underground vault near Highway 101 just outside San Jose. The telephone cables were cut—apparently professionally, in a way that would be hard to repair. About a half hour later, surveillance cameras at Pacific Gas & Electric Co's nearby Metcalf substation picked up a streak of light, apparently a signal from a flashlight. Snipers then opened fire. The shooters appear to have been aiming at the transformer's cooling systems, which were filled with oil. The system leaked 52,000 gallons; the transformer overheated and began to crash. Then there was another flash of light, and the shooting, which had gone on almost 20 minutes, stopped. The assault knocked out 17 giant transformers that feed electrical power to Silicon Valley. A minute before the police arrived, the shooters disappeared into the night. No suspect in the case has been identified. There was no big blackout after the attack—officials rerouted power, and plants in Silicon Valley were asked to increase output—but it took 27 days to get the substation fully working again. Those who worry about the grid mostly worry about hackers, and understandably: It is under regular hack attack. But the more immediate and larger threat may be physical attacks. In any case, the incident appears to lift the discussion beyond the hypothetical. Protection of the grid on all levels and from all threats should be given much more urgent priority by the federal government. If it ever goes down nationally, it will take time to get it back up and operational, and in the time it could take—months, weeks—many of our country's problems would present themselves in new and grimmer ways. There would likely be broad unrest, much of it inevitable and some of it opportunistic. What would happen in an environment like that, with people without light, means of communication, and perhaps in time food? What would happen to public safety? To civil liberties? Those questions sound farfetched. They are not."
Is it Al Qaeda? Eco-terrorists? Whoever it is, it is scary. The first thing I would do is bullet-proof the cooling systems coast to coast.
The floating book shop got a huge break from mother nature. It looked like the the good fortune would be of no avail until the eleventh hour, when a middle aged woman purchased three works of non-fiction, two by Frank McCourt, and drawings of Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross a woman on my floor left behind when she moved. Both are entirely black on white except for the blue eyes of Streisand. Minutes later, as I was packing up, a gentleman approached and bought two John Grisham novels. My thanks to these two kind folks, and to the old Russian character who always greets me enthusiastically and shakes my hand vigorously. He speaks virtually no English. He proudly tells me: "Eighty-five," signifying his age, and "Bye-bye," when he leaves. He does pantomime to show me what he's been up to, eating and sleeping mostly. He hands out wrapped candy to children who pass. Some parents won't allow their kids to accept, which is understandable. They have no idea how harmless he is.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Horror Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic's Rom-Com Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kny5llp
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
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