BELLA VISTA — Police are looking for a person who broke into a Carroll Electric substation through a cut fence and caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage.

Bella Vista police were called Thursday morning to the substation near Bella Vista Way and Pinion Valley Road.

Someone snipped through the chain-link fence during the night, then tried to cut through copper wire, police said. When the person attempted to cut the wire, they destroyed an 875-amp copper regulator, resulting in more than $28,000 in damages, police said.

Nancy Plagge, director of communications for Carroll Electric, said the regulator, which controls voltage distributed to customers, was fully loaded at the time.

“It was an incredibly lethal situation,” she said. “I bet they realized that and left the scene of the crime. Thankfully, it did not cause any outages.”

A similar incident was reported at an Ozarks Electric Cooperative substation at 6379 E. Huntsville Road in Fayetteville on Jan. 23. Police said a fence was cut and 400 feet of wire was taken.

Plagge said the two substations are not affiliated.

To report any information in the Bella Vista incident, call Capt. Tim Cook at 479-855-3771.