Copper Thiefs

This piece is composed for an audience between the ages of 18 and older. The purpose of this piece is to direct the audience's attention to small incidents within our province.

A duo of copper thieves caused a blackout last Saturday night by chopping down a power pole in a mountainous area near Markham, according to the Ontario Utilities Board.
“Who would have ever thought ten years ago that people would cut down a power pole and steal the wire off it?” said LUB general manager Kenny Baird. “But that’s the day we live in.”
Authorities first got wind that something was wrong just after 11 p.m. Sunday when they began getting reports of power outages in the small mountain communities.
The downed power pole was in a remote area that had been strip-mined since the pole was erected in the 1930s or ‘40s, so crews had to wait for daylight before trying making their way through a “muddy mess” to repair it, Baird said.
“They had to take a ‘dozer and cut a road up to where the pole’s at,” he said.
The crew then found that someone had apparently used an axe to fell the pole and then stripped it of 500 to 750 feet of copper wiring, he said.
“We didn’t find any bodies, so evidently they made sure it was de-energized before they cut the copper off of it,” he said.
Approximately 435 electrical customers were without power until the line was restored around noon today,