Originally Posted by BDW
That's bush league,

30 yrs ago I remember 2 crazy cases of aluminum theft.

1st, guys came in and completely cut up and removed all the aluminum bleachers at local high school, BOTH sides of the field
2nd, guys were using chain saws to cut down the aluminium light poles on FL turnpike, they got quite a few, then 1 of them got zapped and went to the great recycler in the sky......





i was in south Fla/Homestead area doing emergency generator power on a daily basis following hurricane Andrew. Early on I noticed a large 6x6x60'? alum cross highway road sign truss that had been torn down in the hurricane and had oddly rolled a hundred yards onto a roadside farm. It weighed thousands of pounds. A day or so later one afternoon I noticed a couple of scrappers with chain saws cutting it up. I flagged down a couple of Florida Troopers at the nearby toll plaza. They could not be bothered and blew me off. It was completely gone the next day.
So much for see something, say something.
The OP's linked story seems rather odd, something is off.
1. Steel is not worth that much as scrap, seriously doubt it was alum
2. Dropping a tower is risky, likely not done safely at dark
3, Removing it quickly would take planning and man power
4, That is a lot of cutting to get it into pieces not requiring machinery to move
5. It is easily identified at a scrap yard and while moving




Last edited by jcc; 02/10/24 06:59 PM.
Reality check, that half the population is smarter then 50% of the people and it's a constantly contested fact.