Metal thieves strike overnight, disrupting highway traffic
Posted October 13, 2011 7:50 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
BURNABY (NEWS1130) – The latest case metal theft in Metro Vancouver caused the closure of Highway 1 last night, but the situation could have been much worse than just a one-hour inconvenience.
The wires fell across the Trans-Canada; someone cut the lines just south of the Sprott Street overpass at about 10 p.m.
“Lucky it dropped nicely across the freeway, not striking any vehicles,” says RCMP Staff Sergeant Rob Marks. “It wasn’t very heavy, so we actually pull it off the freeway by hand.”
Shawn Hall with Telus confirms the cut lines belong to the phone company and says they’ve logged more than 300 cases of metal theft so far this year. “Cutting down live copper cable… These thieves are putting our customers’ lives at risk, cutting off their access to 911 service.”
In this case, Hall says they have yet to determine if the cut wires were active. This time, there have been no reports of service disruption.
