"As soon as I came around that corner I looked and said, 'Oh God, they're gone,'" said Manuel Ortega, the McGuire & Hester project foreman.
He's talking about two 15-ton excavators, worth $120,000 each. They were stolen off McGuire & Hester's job site in Clayton Monday night.
"They would have had to have to stop traffic, move the excavators down and load them onto the back of a trailer," said Kim Carone from McGuire & Hester.
The tracks from the getaway truck are still on the ground.
"That's just low. They're stalking us. They know they what they're doing," said Ortega.
It turns out these kinds of heists are becoming more and more commonplace on construction sites.
"The construction industry has taken a hard hit. It started with the copper, now it's equipment and now as you can see, they're upping their game," said Carone.
Typically equipment is stolen then illegally sold in Mexico, but none of this matters to those at Clayton regency. They've been waiting for this project to finish so they can finally connect to the county's water pipelines.
Water for one community is trucked in twice a day every day from Brentwood and stored in large containers. It's treated, but it's not recommended for drinking. No excavators means the plan is delayed.
"Everything we do is bottled water for my three children. And now someone has to do this to us. It's horrible," said Michael Blair, a Clayton resident.
McGuire and Hester is offering a $2,500 reward.
