Public Safety

Fort Walton Beach man charged for 2024 power outage, DNA leads to arrest

DNA evidence from alcohol can led police to suspect who caused September outage affecting 5,600 customers.

Jared Williams

A Fort Walton Beach man has been arrested for allegedly causing a September power outage that left 5,600 customers without electricity.

Michael Hall, 42, was charged with tampering with “critical infrastructure” after DNA evidence linked him to the incident at a Florida Power Light facility, the Fort Walton Beach Police Department announced Wednesday.

The outage occurred Sept. 8, 2024, at 1:30 a.m. and required FPL employees to work multiple hours of overtime to restore service, according to the report.

Police responded to the FPL facility at 31 Hollywood Blvd NW at 4:35 a.m. for a possible burglary. Investigators say they found a cold can of alcohol at the scene and submitted it to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for DNA analysis.

The results identified Hall as a suspect. After detectives interviewed him, he was arrested and charged with violation of Florida State Statute 812.141 (2)(b).

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