Thieves steal copper, knock out power to some Mason County customers
MASON COUNTY, Wash. - Copper wire thieves caused an outage on Thanksgiving Day and left several Mason County customers in the dark for several hours.
On Thursday afternoon, Mason Public Utility District 3 reported an outage for customers on the Tahuya Peninsula and crews were on their way to investigate the cause.
The affected areas included Haven Lake, Wooten Lake, Lake Christine, Mission Lake, Tiger Lake, Panther Lake, and neighborhoods off of Bear Creek Dewatto road.
Crews were able to restore power to most of the affected areas but still didn't know the cause of the outage.
Later that evening, linemen found damaged equipment and it was due to vandalism. Mason PUD said thieves broke into a secured power vault and stole all the copper, causing the outage.
"This is extremely dangerous. They are lucky they are not dead or seriously injured," officials said.
Mason County also had a vandalism incident last week.
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