Now here's a good one ...

[aspeck]

Not far from us ... yep, we are in the hills of Central PA!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080515/ap_on_fe_st/odd_power_line_theft_2

CONFLUENCE, Pa. - Two Somerset County men are charged with trying to steal live power lines that were still attached to a transformer and utility poles.
Police said Kevin Lee Lytle, 27, and Daniel Jay Basinger, 24, both of Confluence, were shocked during the theft attempt on May 3 in Lower Turkeyfoot Township.
Both were charged Wednesday, but only Basinger was well enough to attend his arraignment on the attempted theft charge.
Police say the incident disrupted power to area residences for about five hours. Penelec Power Co. owns the lines which suffered $1,500 damage.

 

[zach103]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

I wonder what they wanted them for... and what do you think was going through their mind when they did it...

 

[bhammer]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

we've had that happen down here. The thiefs steal the cable and sell it to the scrap yards. Also hot on their lists: cat converters, ac unit coils, copper wiring from new home construction, and a new 400# WWII Vets bronze memerioal. Just about anything with metal in it is fair game for them. Scrap yards are starting to require you to validate the source and get a photo pf you and your DL before you can sell to them.

 

[wildmaninal]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

How dumb can they get! Our scrap yards around here are always on the look out for people bringing in power lines and other items. For instance I was hauling a older junk car down for a neighbor a few weeks back and when we got down to the scrap yard the police was there. We asked one of the employees "what was going on", he replied "someone was steeling drain covers and trying to scrap them so we called the police". Well we got turned around and had to go back for the title of the car we were hauling. When we got back down there the police was still there. A city truck was pulling into position so they could load the drain covers back up. As we were driveing by with the windows down in my truck one of my passengers asked one of the city workers "hey man would you like to buy some drain covers".

Found out from a cousin of mine that the same people were coming down the street he lives on stealing those covers.

I didn't get to see who got arrested or if anybody got arrested, I think they had the drain covers in the back of a van.

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

I wonder what they wanted them for... and what do you think was going through their mind when they did it...

Easy...price of copper has gone through the roof. There a lot of money in those lines when they take it to a metal recycler.
There have been probably 1/2 dozen incidents or more like this in the Vancouver area. However several of the thieves have not been too lucky on understanding the concept of what a 'ground' is... or only touch one wire at a time. I saw a few photos from a police report on one of the guys who got cooked....awful stuff.
Stupid is...as stupid does.

 

[SS MAYFLOAT]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

At our local scrap yard, a guy brought in a full new roll of #4 bare solid ground wire. The employee called his office, the office called the sheriff, the sheriff hauled the guy in. The guy said he found it along the side of the road. Uh, a 150lb roll of brand new wire would just happen to fall off the back of a truck. The sheriff didn't believe him since a hardware store reported a missing roll of wire.

What gets me is that those high voltage lines is not 100% aluminum. There usually is a steel leader wire that is added in for strength for when it is strung from pole to pole. Our scrap yards will only give minimum price for it being considered contaminated. Of course if one takes the tim to remove it, one can get the full price then. Still bad news on taking stuff that is in operation.

Just a couple of nights ago, someone stole an old Chevy radiator from my neighbor and they got a 5 gallon gas can with some very old gas in it from my shed. Guess that is one way of getting rid of 8 year old gas.

 

[MikDee]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

You know what they call those guys?,,,,,, a couple of "Dim Bulbs"!

 

[jcsercsa]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

Here a few months ago , a church here had 4 a/c units stolen, and they were the big units think they said 20,000 grand to replace .
Also they were stealing the man hole covers , they caught them .
And I have heard of people stealing transformers , on the other side of town here they were with out power for 8 or 9 hours cause of the thiefs !!!!
And where i work we had to get new shopping carts cause of thiefs , and we charged a junk yards with excepting stolen property !!! John

 

[Mark42]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

..... And where i work we had to get new shopping carts cause of thiefs , and we charged a junk yards with excepting stolen property !!! John

Good for you. My personal experience it that the vast majority of salvage yards operate on the shady side of legal. Only auto salvage, due to part identification numbers (not part numbers) are more on the up-and-up.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

Many of the "high tension" lines are aluminum and you can get alot of it in a truck. The routine here is to cut it up into pieces to scrap it. Glad they were caught.

 

[heyttown]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

Had a big building here in town that had been mothballed for years. A new company bought it and was in the process of rehabbing it and getting it operational. Through the night thieves climbed onto the roof and took apart the copper bus feeders that ran from the transformer to the main electrical gear in the building. The copper bus is solid and very heavy.

The city is in the process of building new public schools, and our job got broken into 5 times in 6 months. We had about 40- 1000' spools of wire come up missing. #8-#14. Plus copper pipe for the plumbers were stolen. It got to the point they were ripping out what was already installed. It got so bad they changed the construction contract to state once the items were installed the city owned them and had to replace what if anything got taken.... Pretty sad when you the city needs to hire security guards to post on job sites to slow down the thefts.

 

[Limited-Time]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

Thieves have stripped the copper wiring our of several of the closed down retail stores (old grocery stores) in this area as well.
The crimes went undiscovered until one of the buildings had a showing to a prospective buyer. As soon as the initial discovery was reported, a police check of all other vacant buildings reviled 4 others had been stripped as well.
As I recall 100K in losses for the 5 stores.

 

[arboldt]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

Last summer the local newspaper reported a huge problem for farmers -- theives would steal the wiring to their irrigation pumps. So not only is there the value of the wiring, but crops lost...

 

[cheburashka]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

what do you think was going through their mind when they did it...

This is just a guess, but I'd say either a whole lot of beer, or some crystal meth.

 

[dave11]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

That is an excellent example of Darwin's principle hard at work.

 

[salty87]

Re: Now here's a good one ...

Good for you. My personal experience it that the vast majority of salvage yards operate on the shady side of legal. Only auto salvage, due to part identification numbers (not part numbers) are more on the up-and-up.

i worked at a scrapyard one summer when i was in school. pretty good motivation to not drop out, that's for sure.

anyway, they've got their tricks for just about everything. of course, they'll only call in the cops on something they can't move. otherwise...just bring it around back...