LOS ANGELES — Elite Interactive Solutions president Michael Zatulov’s home was one of about 16,000 structures that was completely consumed and destroyed by the wildfires that ripped across the Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods of the city last month, fueled by high winds and a lack of water to contain them.
While Zatulov certainly had some quiet moments of despair with his family and privately, instead of falling into a constant state of wallowing in his own misfortune, he decided to try to do something to help his neighbors rebuild their communities and to try to prevent such a wide-ranging disaster from befalling another community.
Given his line of work, you probably won’t be surprised that physical security and crime prevention are at the heart of Zatulov’s effort, dubbed Rebuild the Palisades. The quickly growing consortium includes city council members, FEMA leadership, law enforcement officials, civil engineers, architects, construction representatives and more.
“I realized that, outside of the immediate reaction to how could this have happened and the blame game between what political division created this catastrophe, people had a lot of strong words,” says Zatulov. “Whether you’re for our governor, for our mayor, not for our mayor, it doesn’t matter at that time. What matters is what are we going to do about it? These are the people who have the ability to help people and are helping other people.”
In a recent Zoom meeting that included Rebuild the Palisades members, Mayor Karen Bass spoke to the group and Zatulov was struck by how disorganized public entities are when it comes to handling this situation.
“They’re bickering amongst themselves in a public way,” he says. “I am incredibly disappointed watching this because I had high hopes that our government was going to come in and assist in the contamination cleanup, the rebuilding of the Palisades, putting emphasis on the most critical side: the infrastructure.
“It turns out that the department heads are more preoccupied with their own agendas, not working together. You can see that there was a clear disconnect between the executive order that the president issued and what Mayor Bass has done and is willing to do,” says Zatulov.
What Security Pros Can Learn from LA Wildfires
Zatulov compares his company and the security industry as a whole to his now-devastated neighborhood and he sees the leadership’s response as one he hopes to never emulate.
“The lesson is that the community, if they want to rebuild, they can come together,” he says. “Morale and community is what it takes to build a successful company. You bring the best and the brightest to an organization. You make sure that they have respect for one another. They know their swim lanes, they’re not stepping on each other’s toes.
“The last position I want to have is working for a company where my managers act like my city officials. Let’s talk about how things are going to get different and better tomorrow than they were yesterday. The bottom line is it takes a village to build a village and that’s the same with a company,” says Zatulov.
Elite Interactive Solutions is uniquely positioned because of its Law Enforcement Advisory Board. The company also uses a subterranean command center that can withstand an earthquake of the magnitude 8.9, meaning there’s just about nothing that can knock them offline, no matter the type of disaster that hits the area.
Zatulov Hopes Lessons Were Learned
The company has initiated conversations with the local utility company, which is an Elite customer, about putting in technology like thermal cameras to make sure that there are no spikes and surges in the utility in the power lines.
“We’ve brought to the attention of several key government officials the need for providing that pinpoint accuracy on support,” says Zatulov. “There were people who were stuck in their homes or apartments and we didn’t have a way of directing law enforcement to where they were. At least I can provide some kind of guidance if we had access to pinpoint the services. Otherwise, a law enforcement officer or a firefighter or a medic is going to have to be wandering the streets. In general, I firmly believe that electronic security can help drive the limited resources to save time, save lives and prevent crime.”
That’s also true in the case of preventing or limiting how many looters converge upon a crime scene like the charred remains of several L.A. neighborhoods, he says. When the media reported on homes that were spared in the wide swath of devastation, looters headed there to grab as many valuables as they could, says Zatulov. Crime prevention tools such as remote guarding could have at the very least cut down on that, he says.
“We don’t need to be connected to the grid in order to provide security,” says Zatulov. “We need to be always on. We need to be always watching. It’s hard to adopt electronic security on a mass scale. Nobody embraces change that quickly. It’s a process.
“I’m hoping that, with what we’ve seen on the ground there and security being a very important component that’s been overlooked and that we really need to focus on, as we go through this process of rebuilding and the need for security continuously increases. The idea is that, if we can add electronic video, surveillance and equipment, we can then advise the emergency response resources to the right location. I think that would be a very, very helpful thing, as we look to other natural disasters, not just in Los Angeles, but across the country,” he says.