The latest copper thefts in Magnolia knocked out phone service to some residents in the community.
Thieves targeted phone lines along Spur 149 in Magnolia three times in March, leading to residents in the area losing their phone service.
During the latest incident on March 14, a suspect was arrested after a Montgomery County sheriff's deputy saw wiring cut from telephone poles lying on the ground and several suspicious people hiding in nearby woods.
“Tampering with telephone lines can put people at risk by leaving them without telephone service – including 911 service,” said Mike Barger, a spokesman for AT&T in Houston. “And thieves could be killed, or seriously injured. That’s because the wires often are under high tension, and when they are cut a pole could potentially snap. In addition, our lines typically co-exist with electric wires, and if a thief comes into contact with the wrong wire he or she could be electrocuted.”
AT&T said they seen a recent rash of cooper thefts from their phone lines in the Houston area, and metal thefts, are on the rise in Montgomery County.
Conroe, too, saw a spike in cooper thefts from commercial air conditioning units in the city in January, but the trend there has appear to have subsided, police said.
Along Interstate 10 east of the 610 Loop, cooper thieves even appear to be targeting street lights. Dozens of lights recently were hit, leaving a dangerous stretch of the road in the dark. The thieves were targeting copper conductors in the lights.
In October, 2,700 people in north Houston were without power after thieves stole cooper wire from an Entergy substation off of Interstate 45. The grid had to be turned off for about an hour while crews repaired the damage, said Debi Derrick, a spokeswoman for Entergy Texas. No major incidents have been reported since then, Derrick added.
“Metal theft has been a problem on and off for many years,” said Lt. Dan Norris of the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office. “The instances seem to spike with the varying price of metal.”
In Magnolia, thieves targeted a one-foot phone line, which includes copper in the bundle. Those lines serve both customer phones and Internet services, said Barger. A few dozen customers the area were impacted by the outage.
But many of those lines also include a power source, which can prove to be fatal for the cooper thieves.
For AT&T, the cooper thefts are nothing new. In addition to targeting phone lines on telephone poles, thieves often target their storage facilities. AT&T beefed up security procedures as a result of the growing incidents.
AT&T has championed new state and municipal laws for sellers and purchasers of base metal as well as sponsored training sessions for law enforcement. They also have deployed preventative counter measures, when feasible, said Barger.
In 2007, Conroe approved an ordinance to help combat the theft of metals from construction sites in it city. The law requires dealers to keep records, such as description of material; name, address and driver’s license of seller; motor vehicle description and to retain the produce for seven days and records for a year. Any suspected stolen metal must be reported to police.
To report metal thefts, contact the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office at (936) 760-5871 or (936)364-4200.