PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Palm Tran services are running a bit slow Monday, Over the weekend, thieves stole 33 catalytic converters from vehicles.
As a result, Palm Tran is scrambling to cover routes and dealing with delays.
Wth the right tool, somebody can cut off a catalytic converter in under 15 seconds, authorities said.
"People keep on stealing these things because they're valuable. There are precious metals inside, which make them expensive to resell," said Ron Katz, the owner of Midas of West Palm Beach.
Palm Tran knows something about the cost of having to buy new catalytic converters. Over the weekend, the public transit system got hit by thieves who stole catalytic converters off of 33 vehicles.
To give you an idea of how significant this is, according to Palm Tran, it has 32 routes and 35,000 riders daily, taking seniors to meal sites, kids to school, and people to the doctor, among other places.
If they use the service, maybe plan for alternate transportation, if possible, or just plan for some delays," said Joe Harrington, who works for Palm Tran.
Harrington said Palm Tran has repaired 22 vehicles and hope to have the rest fixed by Wednesday.
"We are actively looking for other catalytic converters, looking for spare vehicles that might be at other locations as solutions to try to have enough vehicles to provide the service we know we need to provide on Monday," Harrington said.
Katz said he's been in contact with Palm Tran and is helping them to find catalytic converters.
"I called Ford themselves. Ford has 10 in the entire united states available. They're all spoken for. There are 600 on backorder," Katz said.
Anyone with information abou the thefts is asked to call Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County at 1-800-458-TIPS.