The bad guys are at it again. In a recent post, I talked about the increase in copper theft incidents in metro Atlanta. There is another article today in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the problem in the metro area. This is one part of the article that caught my eye:
“City of Atlanta police officers have responded to 150 incidents involving copper thefts just in the month of June, according to crime statistics obtained by the AJC. The crimes have prompted the police department to reach out to church leaders to discuss ways of preventing further thefts, Carlos Campos, spokesman for Atlanta police, said.
‘Churches, particularly the smaller ones, make for opportunistic targets because they are generally occupied only on Sundays and Wednesday evenings,’ Campos said.”
The problem is that not only do you want to be left without air conditioning this summer but it can cost at least $3,000 to repair the damage from copper theft. It is much better to try to prevent copper theft than deal with the aftermath.
There is a task force in metro Atlanta that is working on copper theft prevention. The challenge is that copper tubing and copper wire theft are hard to combat because there are typically no markings on the copper tube and on copper wire.
As I discussed in my earlier post, there are actions you can take to prevent copper theft. They range from building metal cages to protect air conditioners to a variety of electronic security technologies that can be used.
Now is the time to talk to your security company about copper theft prevention before you become a victim.
-Scott Hightower, Verified Security