Former Hurricane Isaias, which hit much of the U.S. east coast on August 3 and 4 as a tropical storm, remains a disaster recovery challenge in terms of restoring power and associated broadband services.
Indeed, roughly 377,000 customers are still experiencing power outages as of 9 a.m. ET on Sunday, August 9. In some areas hit by the storm, utilities are predicting power may not be restored until Tuesday, August 11 -- a full week after Isaias arrived.
Still, there are continued signs of progress. For instance, repair crews have already restored service to roughly 3.1 million east coast customers since August 4, according to PowerOutage.us and ChannelE2E analysis of the data (see chart above).
Moreover, the steady hum of power generators this past week was heard across regions such as Long Island -- where thousands of consumers and business owners worked to keep their own lights on and broadband flowing until power crews fully repaired the local electric grid.
MSPs Were Ready
Ahead of the storm, savvy IT solutions providers and MSPs up and down the U.S. east coast double-checked backup and disaster recovery (BDR) and business continuity plans, along with cloud-based backup systems that safely store customer data offsite.
Plus, many MSPs had already deployed cloud-based applications, remote access and backup systems as part of the COVID-19 economy and the recent shift to Work From Anywhere customer setups.
LinkedIn: Stephen Riddick, VP, sales and marketing, CSP Inc.
Notes Guy Baroan, president of Baroan Technologies of Elmwood Park, New Jersey:
"If there are any silver linings from the Covid-19 forced lockdowns then one of them is that most of our clients are already working as if they were in a disaster scenario. Everyone has the capability to remotely access their servers and data as they are all in the cloud, which have the generators, multiple failover Internet providers and the multiple locations in sync for their data availability. Our area in New Jersey is not expected to be hard hit, but as far as readiness, we have been for the last four plus months."
Adds Stephen Riddick, VP of sales and marketing at CSP Inc., an MSP in Raleigh, North Carolina:
"Fortunately, we appeared to have dodged a bullet with Isaias. While there are some small pockets of extensive damage, we did not see the widespread destruction that has accompanied past storms.
Equally as important, we realized in the lead up to this storm that company’s work-from-home efforts because of COVID enhanced the business continuity of these organizations. We have seen a big shift to the cloud and remote-work technology. While deployed for COVID, this should minimize the risk associated with storms as well."
Preparing for the Next Storm, Business Outage
Meanwhile, business continuity expert Mike Semel maintains this Disaster Checklist to help partners and customers prepare for future storms.
ChannelE2E will update this story as Isaias continues to move up the U.S. east coast. Special thanks to Ulistic for ongoing updates from the MSP market company's partner network.
