Almost three months after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, the electrical grid and communications infrastructures are still severely affected.

The lack of stable communications and the constant interruptions to the electrical service not only hinder regular commercial operations, they also limit electronic transactions and payment processing, thus slowing down the recovery of our economy.

This emergency has taught us how important the technology sector is for the various industries in our island. When these disasters occur, many become aware that this sector is the basis for business continuity, and that we need an effective Disaster Recovery system to guarantee operations during lengthy emergency situations after major disasters like Hurricane Maria.

Netwave has been a refuge for many enterprises that saw how Maria destroyed their facilities and prevented them from communicating effectively for days on end after the resulting general blackout. At Netwave, we were able to shelter many of these enterprises at our facilities in Puerta de Tierra, Santurce and Ponce, all of which have backup electricity and communications, and 24-hour security and monitoring. Some of the special measures Netwave has taken include locating facilities outside flooding zones, parallel emergency generators, and backup connections to different substations.

In fact, the Government Emergency Operations Center started out at our facilities in Puerta de Tierra and then moved to the Convention Center in Miramar. During the first week of the emergency, after we got notice of their need, we managed to reestablish the optical fiber service between the Center and our facilities in Puerta de Tierra, so as to help the government continue its operations.

The business emergency center has kept operating without electrical interruptions since the hurricane, thanks to its redundancy design and supported by a fleet of diesel trucks to supply its generators. Redundant designs make any electrical failures transparent to our clients. We continue operating as usual.

This time around, clients realized how important it is to have backup facilities in case of emergency. A lot of people used to see it as a short-term service, but not this time.

*The author is general manager at Netwave Equipment. For more information, you may call 787-724-4842.