CRESCENT LAKE, OR  -- Vandals are blamed for a widespread power outage in the Crescent Lake and Odell Lake areas, south of La Pine. An outage was reported around 2:30 a.m. on June first. Teresa Lackey, with Midstate Electric Cooperative, says crews went to the Mowich substation to investigate and immediately discovered what was wrong, "It had been shot. We had about 17 bullet strikes." She tells KBND News, "Mowich substation is off of Highway 58, and we had approximately 970 members that were without power. We looked at what had happened, and then we rerouted the power to get those members back on."

Lackey says, "At this point, we're not sure exactly what occurred, we do have the Klamath County Sheriffs and federal agencies that are investigating." The investigation, though, is being hampered by a lack of security footage. " We do have cameras onsite on a lot of our substations, and we did have cameras there, but they were not operating for some reason. But we are working with local and federal agencies and are investigating this illegal activity so that, hopefully, it won't happen again." She says there have been no further incidents. 

File Photo: Mowich Substation