Like many municipalities, the City of Pasadena, Calif., has placed a high priority on securing its power and water sources since September 11. In 2003, the city's Department of Power enlisted Stewart & Associates of Los Angeles to install an integrated access control, video surveillance and intrusion protection system at its dispatch center - where power sources throughout the city are monitored and decisions about when to activate and shut down substations are made. Since then, the power department has expanded the system to include several of its substations and a new power plant. Additionally, Pasadena's Department of Water has enlisted Stewart & Associates to install an integrated system to secure several reservoirs. Between the two departments, the City of Pasadena now has 128 card readers, 196 video cameras and 52 motion detectors, with plans to add more devices as additional substations and reservoirs are added. Stewart & Associates also is working with Pasadena's Department of Public Works to install a system to protect the Rose Bowl stadium.
"We needed integration between access control and the surveillance system so one would talk to the other," notes David Chau, senior information systems engineer for the City of Pasadena. "If there is an alarm on the access control system or vice versa, it will trigger both systems." If video cameras detect movement or if one of the outdoor motion detectors is tripped, monitoring personnel are alerted and the view from a nearby camera is automatically displayed. By viewing the images, monitoring personnel can quickly determine if the motion was caused by a human intruder or something else, such as a deer.