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Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

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Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#41

Post by chasd00 »

zdragnar wrote: post #18
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #13

Wow. My feeling is that metal theft is getting out of control. If the news reporting on it is to be trusted, cases are in fact rising. Thieves have probably always hit junkyards and stolen wire, but now there seems to be more and more infrastructure hit as well. The oddest aspect of this is that scrap steel isn't even worth that much. How many tons could that be? Let's say it's 400 tons, that's maybe $100k. And it se…

Our local metro area has had a problem with copper thieves for a few years now, cutting open and stealing the wiring from street lights. People are why we can't have nice things, apparently.

when the price of copper went through the roof a few years ago the local drug houses in Dallas started accepting it as payment for drugs. They would then sell the metal to scrap yards at a profit. Once that was up and running any copper left unguarded was gone instantly. Air conditioners were gone, wiring in new construction was gone, wiring in rent houses was gone, any copper anywhere was stolen constantly. I remember seeing people pushing shopping carts in Old East Dallas filled with copper cables, pipes, and other stuf.

There was a story probably once a month about someone breaking into a power substation or some other high voltage area to try and steal copper and electrocuting themselves.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#42

Post by yreg »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #13

Wow. My feeling is that metal theft is getting out of control. If the news reporting on it is to be trusted, cases are in fact rising. Thieves have probably always hit junkyards and stolen wire, but now there seems to be more and more infrastructure hit as well. The oddest aspect of this is that scrap steel isn't even worth that much. How many tons could that be? Let's say it's 400 tons, that's maybe $100k. And it se…

Reminds me of sand theft. Apparently, sometimes even an entire beach gets dug up and stolen.

Planet Money did an episode on it.

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/628890875

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#43

Post by marcosdumay »

huytersd wrote: post #16
imglorp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few guys with plasma cutters and a winch could have that pieced and loaded on a flatbed in no time.

Not easily. Those metal tension cables are dangerous to cut and it’s going to have to fall like a tree in some direction.

Metal thieves are not known for following strict workplace safety protocols.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#45

Post by dylan604 »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #13

Wow. My feeling is that metal theft is getting out of control. If the news reporting on it is to be trusted, cases are in fact rising. Thieves have probably always hit junkyards and stolen wire, but now there seems to be more and more infrastructure hit as well. The oddest aspect of this is that scrap steel isn't even worth that much. How many tons could that be? Let's say it's 400 tons, that's maybe $100k. And it se…

> Why would they not just steal two or three cars,

Is this a real question? You're coming at this with the position that car theft is so easy because it's easy to get away with and has a high rate of return. That only works if you have the connections with chop shops or exporters to be able to get money for that car. You also have to have the skills/tools for being able to steal the car in the first place. To flip that, the people that do steal cars would probably have no clue on how to dismantle a steel structure, have the means to load/haul that steel, or know what recycling places will even buy from them without immediately reporting it to police.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#46

Post by me_me_me »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #13

Wow. My feeling is that metal theft is getting out of control. If the news reporting on it is to be trusted, cases are in fact rising. Thieves have probably always hit junkyards and stolen wire, but now there seems to be more and more infrastructure hit as well. The oddest aspect of this is that scrap steel isn't even worth that much. How many tons could that be? Let's say it's 400 tons, that's maybe $100k. And it se…

100k between 4-5 people, is a lot of money for a lot of people. Especially metal stealing ones

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#47

Post by hluska »

The world has changed in odd ways. Ten or twenty years ago, this would seem like very ambitious drug addicts. Today, there’s a real chance that this will turn out to be a prank for Internet cred. And as strange or unlikely as that sounds, a guy recently made the news for intentionally crashing a plane for internet cred. I sure never would have imagined that.

We live in interesting times and that’s not always a good thing.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#48

Post by dylan604 »

bombcar wrote: post #21
pelorat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

A nutcase would have dropped the tower and left it down, not removed the tower itself. They'll find the scrapyard that received it and track it down from there. Unless it was done months ago and they just finally noticed.

Everyone loves a stupid criminal, so it would make sense it would be a local scrapyard. If they were "smart", they would split it up across multiple scrapyards so that it was much less obvious. The fun thing would be to find a new tower that suddenly appeared in another location that happens to look just like this missing one.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#49

Post by chasd00 »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #29

Meth heads are REALLY stepping up their game.

they can get resourceful that's for sure. A family friend had a catalytic converter stolen in the parking lot of a grocery store when they stopped to pick up a few things. Stealing a catalytic converter involves cutting parts of the exhaust system out of a car.

Re: Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower, owner says

#50

Post by randomdata »

hiddencost wrote: post #10

Steel scraps at $225 a ton.. That's about what a large pickup truck can haul. Copper is worth 20x more. I dunno, if you're willing to work that hard you could probably just become a contractor.

Most people don't fear hard work, they fear being beholden to other people. Ain't nobody hiring a contractor under the terms of "Yeah, go ahead and build me a house however you like, whenever you feel like it. I don't care about what you do."
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