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From: The Blaze

Dave Urbanski

Although the fact that the still-unsolved attack on a power station near San Jose occurred just a handful of hours after the Boston Marathon bombing — and apparently raised a few eyebrows initially — its ride in the public eye has been decidedly under the radar to date.

But that may be changing.

Now that the ranking member of the House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee is decrying the incident as possibly indicative of a wider security issue, the brazen attack is getting a bit more attention, noted Foreign Policy.

“It is clear that the electric grid is not adequately protected from physical or cyber attacks,” said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) at a hearing on regulatory issues earlier this month, Foreign Policy noted.

Here’s what went down: Around 1 a.m. on April 16, two manholes were entered and fiber cables cut around the PG&E Metcalf substation, which killed some local 911 services, landline service to the substation, and cell phone service in the area, a senior U.S. intelligence official told Foreign Policy.

More from Foreign Policy:

The intruder(s) then fired more than 100 rounds from what two officials described as a high-powered rifle at several transformers in the facility. Ten transformers were damaged in one area of the facility, and three transformer banks — or groups of transformers — were hit in another, according to a PG&E spokesman.

Cooling oil then leaked from a transformer bank, causing the transformers to overheat and shut down. State regulators urged customers in the area to conserve energy over the following days, but there was no long-term damage reported at the facility and there were no major power outages. There were no injuries reported.

Waxman called the incident “an unprecedented and sophisticated attack on an electric grid substation with military-style weapons” and that “under slightly different conditions, there could have been serious power outages or worse.”

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