Approximately 300 metres of operational telephone wire was clipped from a Prince George phone line early Monday morning, most likely so thieves could sell the copper on the scrap metal market.
"This was stolen right off the pole," said Prince George RCMP spokesman Cpl. Craig Douglass. "This was really brazen. They had to climb the pole, cut the wire, not get hurt, and get the wire away. They knew what they were doing, or else they got really lucky."
Telus spokesman Shawn Hall knows from the company's experience just how lucky these thieves were, and it is not due to the current carried in the cable.
Unlike the hydro lines hanging just above the phone cable, telephone lines do not carry the kind of power normally considered lethal if touched.
But it can kill.
"These thieves are putting their own lives at risk," he said. "The cables are held under a tremendous amount of tension. If you don't cut it correctly, and we saw this in Maple Ridge, it can wildly snap. In the Maple Ridge incident, the pole itself snapped from that violent recoiling and the person fell and the pole landed on top, killing him."
The second the line is cut, other lives are put instantly at risk as well, said Hall.
"Make no mistake about it, this is not a victimless crime," he said. "These thieves are robbing homeowners and business owners of communication links, including 911 service.
"Panic buttons, Interac machines, even just the simple convenience of making a call, it has all been disrupted, but the crucial thing is the 911 service has been cut off. These thieves are putting lives at risk."
Telus has had to contend with live wire thefts 127 times so far in 2011. In June alone, there have been four such cases in Prince George.
This latest incident happened early in the morning, the exact time is unknown, about two kilometres down P.G. Pulp Mill Road to the east of the Cameron Street Bridge. It affected about 50 customer locations until it could be restored on Monday evening.
Fixing the incident also took maintenance crews off of scheduled jobs, adding more inconvenience to local telecommunication customers.
Hall said thieves have made wire theft the leading cause of outages in British Columbia. Some go so far as to use white vans and wear industrial clothing to mimic real line workers, but if anyone feels any suspicion about people in the vicinity of electronic infrastructure, Hall encouraged a call to police just to be on the safe side.
The stakes for the public are just too high.
