Sometime Tuesday night burglars crossed almost two hundred yards of woods and field from the parking lot of the Lodge Apartments to the River Pointe Baptist Church at 700 Gladstell. Once there they cut a commercial-grade cyclone fence and pulled it back lie a curtain. The group then went to work. They cut the copper air conditioning lines and after shutting the power down disconnected the electricity from eight central air conditioning units. They then started the hard work of moving the units across the field and through the woods. Marks can be seen where they slid the units across the grass. At the tree line what appeared to be dolly marks could be seen.
The units, four Trane ten-ton units weighing approximately 550 pounds each, three four ton units weighing approximately 225 pounds each, and one 2 ton unit weighing approximately 100 pounds.
Pastor Larry Standburg walked into the church Wednesday morning and noticed it was quite warm. When he checked the thermostat he saw it was not working. After checking the breakers he walked outside to get the phone number of the air conditioning company that installed the system. That is when he saw the bare concrete pads.
Allied Air Conditioning spent most of the day installing new units. The technician said he felt it took some time to steal the units with several trips but once they hit the scrap yard is when the surprise will come. The units, made by Trane contain very little precious metal (copper or aluminum). He estimated the thieves may get about $15 dollars a unit.He said actually had they just removed the copper lines and the electric wire they would have had more value.
The church has now installed alarms on the new units and a camera system to monitor both inside and outside the church.
Anyone with information of who the persons involved may be could gain a lot more money than the thieves netted by calling Montgomery County Crime Stoppers at 800-392-stop or www.montgomerycountycrimestoppers.org. You can also call the Conroe Police Department.
