Web Posted: 01/30/2010 12:00 CST Man electrocuted in Atascosa County copper wire theft

By Vianna Davila - Express-News A Jourdanton man was killed early Friday after he was shocked by 69,000 volts of electricity as officials said he was stealing copper wire from an Atascosa County substation.

Officials identified the man as Guy Bayles Harlan, 44.

Just before 12:30 a.m., sheriff's dispatchers and the Karnes Electric Cooperative began receiving calls about outages in the eastern half of the county, in addition to reports of a fiery flash in the sky and a loud boom, Atascosa County Sheriff's Chief Deputy David Soward said.

Daniel Sauceda, the co-op's Pleasanton District manager, drove to the nearby substation and noticed someone had cut through the fenced area. He found Harlan's body inside.

Investigators believe others also were there for at least two hours, stripping the copper wiring that grounds many of the electrical devices. They think Harlan was standing atop one of the substation transformers, cutting off one of the wires, when the electricity arced toward him, Soward said.

Because of the amount of power in the transformer, Harlan wouldn't necessarily have had to come into contact with the grounded metal to be electrocuted. With a voltage that high, “it reaches out to you,” Sauceda said.

The incident left about 1,250 customers without power for about 45 minutes, Sauceda said. Workers quickly rerouted power to another transformer and later rerouted it back after determining no permanent damage had been done to the structure.

The culprits caused about $20,000 in damage, Soward said. He added that copper thefts, after being down for about a year, have started to creep up in the past two or three months.

No one has been arrested, and Soward said two other substations were hit overnight, likely before Harlan was killed — one near Charlotte and another six miles north of Poteet.

Submitted on 02/02/2010

Submitted by: Tim Barlow
Reference: www.mysa.com 01-30-2010

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Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Yet another in the never-ending supply of crispy copper thieves for Darwin to take a gander at. Thanks, Tim.

Candi said:
Definitely Keep: For Darwin's Eyes
Coping copper charcoal crooks.

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