Security Solutions for California’s Electric, Water, Gas and Telecom Infrastructure
Utilities operate the facilities everyone depends on and almost no one watches: substations behind chain-link fences, wastewater treatment plants on the edge of town, pump stations and reservoirs scattered across a service territory, and corporation yards full of transformers, cable reels and fleet vehicles. Many of these sites go unstaffed for most of the day. Safeguard On Demand provides utility and critical infrastructure security services to utilities, municipal power and water departments, special districts and their contractors, combining posted officers, mobile patrol and monitored cameras into a plan built around each asset’s role in the system.
We are a California-licensed private patrol operator with more than 11 years in business, 130+ officers across 13 counties and leadership with 30+ years of combined law-enforcement and private-security experience. We start with the consequence of losing a site rather than with a headcount. A distribution substation feeding a hospital, a lift station whose failure means a sewage spill and a yard that holds the spare equipment for the next storm each warrant a different answer, and our security risk assessments set those priorities before a single officer is posted.
The Threats Facing California’s Utility Infrastructure
California learned how exposed grid assets can be on April 16, 2013, when attackers cut nearby fiber-optic cables and fired more than 100 rounds into PG&E’s Metcalf Transmission Substation south of San Jose, damaging 17 transformers and causing more than $15 million in equipment damage. No arrests have been announced. The attack prompted federal regulators to adopt a physical security standard for the bulk power system, and the threat has not faded: U.S. Department of Energy figures reported by CNN counted 25 physical attacks and 80 acts of vandalism against the nation’s grid in 2022, the year gunfire at two substations in Moore County, North Carolina, cut power to about 45,000 homes and businesses.
Day to day, the more frequent problem is metal theft. A June 2025 California Department of Justice bulletin warned that copper wire theft causes telecommunication and utility outages whose repair costs far exceed the metal’s resale value, and it reminded agencies that Penal Code section 591 makes unlawfully cutting or disconnecting utility lines a crime. In Los Angeles, thieves stripped about 38,000 feet of wire from the Sixth Street Viaduct’s lighting system, leaving a repair bill of more than $2.5 million. Trespass, encampments on utility land, graffiti, illegal dumping, yard break-ins and fire risk during red-flag weather complete the picture. Many of the same patrol and access disciplines protect our telecommunications facility and solar farm clients.
How We Protect Substations, Treatment Plants and Utility Yards
Each deployment begins with a free facility risk assessment led by a supervisor who walks the fence line, gates, control buildings, chemical storage, laydown areas and approach roads, then reviews how crews, contractors and deliveries move through the site. We identify where a vehicle could reach the fence, where an outside line of sight exposes critical equipment, which doors get propped open during shift changes and where existing cameras leave gaps. Post orders are written for that facility: patrol frequency, checkpoint locations, contractor escort rules, key and badge control, and exactly whom to call in your control room or operations center when something is wrong.
Coverage is layered. Armed security officers or unarmed officers hold critical gates and control buildings, mobile patrol units make randomized checks across substations and pump stations spread over a service territory, and remote video monitoring watches unstaffed sites between rounds, with our dispatch center escalating verified activity to patrol, your operations staff and law enforcement. During wildfire season and public safety power shutoffs, we can add officers for staging areas, equipment yards and community resource centers on short notice. Every round is GPS-verified and recorded in daily activity reports with timestamped photos that support your incident logs and compliance documentation.
