By Jonathan Wardle
The Joint Terrorism Task Force determined that the explosion at a Utah Power substation on Feb. 25 in Salt Lake City was caused by an external force and not by equipment failure.
The FBI issued a news release on Thursday, Feb. 28 about the continuing investigation into the explosion that damaged two circuit breakers at a Utah Power substation and left 33,000 customers without power in three Utah counties.
The news release stated the Joint Terrorism Task Force had concluded the explosion was not caused by equipment failure, but the real cause and motive behind the explosion are still under investigation.
According to a police report that was approved Wednesday, Feb. 27, the incident was initially dismissed as an accident, but further investigation revealed the possibility of sabotage. Federal investigators became interested because of the Olympics'' presence, the report said.
The Joint Terrorism Task Force took control of the investigation after that point. The Joint Terrorism Task Force is comprised of several federal, state and local security agencies, including the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the Salt Lake City Police Department.
Tom Mangan, public information officer for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, said the explosion was caused by an external force. He declined to comment on whether it appeared to be an act of sabotage at this point in the investigation.
'It wasn''t equipment failure,' said Craig Philippe, public information officer for the FBI. Phillippe said the investigation is continuing to look for the cause of the explosion.
At 10:07 a.m. February 24, an explosion occurred, damaging two circuit breakers at the Utah Power substation located at 4800 West 500 S. in Salt Lake City. The outage caused 33,000 customers in Toelle, Davis and Salt Lake counties to lose power.
David Eskelsen, company spokesman for Utah Power, said most customers were restored to power in 50 minutes. There was complete restoration two hours after the failure occurred, he said.
'We look at this as an act of serious vandalism,' Eskelsen said. 'It was damaged bad enough that it could no longer function. Those units will have to be replaced.'
Eskelsen said no similarly damaging act of vandalism to a Utah Power substation has ever occurred.
Utah Power had security posted at the substation 24 hours a day during the Olympics, Eskelsen said. The security guard reported hearing the explosion, but no one was injured, he said.
Eskelsen declined to comment on the cause of the explosion, other than to restate that it was not caused by equipment failure.
'Our issue is the operation of the system,' Eskelsen said. 'The nature and type of the explosion, that''s up to the police.'
The Salt Lake City Fire Department responded to the explosion, said Scott Freitag, Public Information Officer for the Fire Department.
Freitag said the Fire Department arrived at the substation about twenty minutes after the explosion.
'We sent an engine out there,' Freitag said. 'There was no fire on our arrival. We turned the scene over to the police department and Utah Power.'