A Shocking Theft!!! 

At approximately 9:30 p.m. on Monday July 16, 2007, a thief broke into Suwannee Valley Electric’s Burnham Substation northwest of Jasper in Hamilton County.  The thief cut all the visible copper wire attached to the substation's main line structures and the main substation power transformer. This caused an outage for thousands of members.  After removing many of the steel structure ground wires, the thief made way to the large power transformer.  In an effort to steal even more, the thief cut the main line ground on the large unit, which caused  an immediate disruption of power.  The imbalance of electricity triggered  the substation's protective surge arresters and caused several explosions and wide spread outages.  Shortly afterward, SVEC's crews arrived on the scene to discover and repair the problem.  Fortunately, no one was injured. However, it is believed the thief may have experienced one of the greatest shocks of their life!

Electrical substations can be very dangerous to an untrained person.  Our professional linemen are trained and ready to perform the work needed to restore power to our members. Many electric utilities from around the country have reported copper theft.  Scrap prices for the commodity have increased in the last few years and so have the number of  thefts. A few extra dollars are not worth the risk of losing one's life!  If you see suspicious activity in or around an electric power substation, please call 911 immediately or SVEC’s trouble number 386-364-5200.

SVEC thanks the Hamilton County Sheriff's Department for their assistance and on going investigation to capture the perpetrators.  On behalf of the employees of Suwannee Valley Electric, we apologize for the inconvenience.