North Carolina is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of blackout culprits

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper announced a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible for damaging two substations in Moore County.

The state’s reward brings the total amount offered to find the culprit(s) to $75,000, with Duke Energy and Moore County each offering $25,000.

“An attack on our critical infrastructure will not be tolerated,” Cooper said. “I appreciate the coordinated effort by law enforcement to leave no stone unturned to find the criminals who did this, and thank Moore County and Duke Energy for accepting the state’s reward for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of those responsible.” lead, have doubled.”

Two substations operated by Duke Energy were destroyed by gunfire around 7 p.m. Saturday night, leaving over 40,000 people without power.

Federal, state and local officials said the attack was intentional and no motive had emerged as of Wednesday.

Moore County Sheriff Ronnie Fields described the incident as something the county had never faced before, saying extensive damage was noted at two substations from gunfire.

On Monday, the FBI joined the investigation into the incident, which was already under investigation by county law enforcement and the State Bureau of Investigations (SBI).

Fields said Sunday he had no information that rumors were true that the outages were somehow connected to a protest at a drag show. “No, as far as I know, none. Is it possible? Yes, everything is possible. But we couldn’t connect anything to the drag show,” Fields told reporters Sunday.

Duke Energy’s Jeff Brooks originally expected the outages to last through Thursday, but recovery times have been pushed back to Wednesday.

“During our investigation into the outage, we determined that the substation was intentionally struck, damaging multiple equipment at the substation and causing a power outage,” Brooks said. “Unlike maybe a storm where you could go in and divert the power elsewhere, in this case that wasn’t an option so the repair needs to be completed. In many cases, some of this equipment needs to be replaced and our crews are currently working on the repair plan.”

Only one person was listed without power in Moore County as of 8 p.m. Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us