The blackout in Spain and Portugal is causing knock-on effects in Gran Canaria. Concern is growing among residents and business owners in Maspalomas after discovering that a significant portion of the alarm systems installed in homes, businesses, and resorts in southern Gran Canaria are connected to monitoring centers located on the Peninsula, more than 2.000 kilometers away.
The situation raises serious questions about the speed and effectiveness of local emergency response in an area where citizen and tourist safety are essential. Added to this is the fear of a possible "security blackout" in the event of saturation, network failures, or simultaneous emergencies. "Our concern is real: if the connection fails or the mainland's central office cannot manage an alert in real time, the expected protection will not be provided," explain business owners in San Bartolomé de Tirajana.
Furthermore, security experts warn that in many cases, alarms can go off without any apparent logical cause, triggered by network outages, interference, or technical failures, generating false alarms that overwhelm response systems. "An alarm that goes off without any real reason can generate distrust in the system and overwhelm security services, precisely what we should most avoid in a tourist environment like ours," they point out.
The San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council confirms that measures are being considered to require a greater local presence of security companies and to study the feasibility of establishing new monitoring centers in the Canary Islands. "We cannot rely solely on external infrastructure for something as sensitive as the protection of our social and economic fabric," stated municipal sources.
