SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – Friday's massive IT outage impacted businesses across globe, including multiple San Diego government entities and hospitals. The worldwide technology outage was attributed to a software issue linked to cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.
The firm said the issue was not related to a security breach or cyberattack.
The outage led to disruptions at airports across the U.S. and around the world, as well as problems at financial institutions, medical facilities, and other businesses and services.
Below, you'll find a list of those affected in the San Diego area:
LAW ENFORCEMENT
Both the San Diego Police and Sheriff's departments experienced problems because of the outages; however, the agencies were still able to receive and respond to 911 calls. SDPD said its dispatch center and patrol teams started taking calls and reports via a manual backup system at around 10:30 p.m. Thursday.
"Regardless of the crisis, our teams are trained to adapt and continue providing service to our residents," SDPD told 10News via email Friday morning. "Our teams are working quickly to restore SDPD computers to 100% operations."
The sheriff's department says it prioritized intakes and medical facilities when the outage first happened. Deputies had to manually process and book arrestees into jail. The booking system was back online at about 3 a.m.
"The outage lasted approximately five hours and, although not all computers in the facility are operational just yet, we are working to get everything back online by mid-day," a sheriff's spokesperson said.
FIRE DEPARTMENT
The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department says its computer-aided dispatch system went down at around midnight, but their backup, human-driven system stayed on top of dispatches and calls for service. The 911 system was not affected.
The system was working again by 1 a.m., per SDFD media services manager Mónica Muñoz.
"All dispatch centers within our County communicate closely and are familiar with fallback procedures," Muñoz said. "In the event of a 9-1-1 outage, there are a variety of options we have to communicate with the public as to what actions to take."
In an event like that, SDFD would communicate to the public via Alert San Diego, wireless emergency alerts, social media and the news.
"Many City computers are not working but our email works with mobile devices," Muñoz said. "Our staffing system is functioning and was not disrupted."
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION
The global outage affected traffic at the border, as CBP experienced processing delays.
"While ensuring national and homeland security, we are working to mitigate impacts to our operations and are proactively working with our stakeholders to minimize the impact to international trade and travel," CBP's statement said. "During this time, travelers at air and land ports of entry may experience longer than normal wait times."
CBP said despite the outage, all of its apps, including Automated Commercial Environment, CBP One, Simplified Arrival and the Global Entry Mobile App, were all working.
HOSPITALS
ABC 10News reached out to Kaiser Permanente, Sharp HealthCare, Scripps Health, UCSD Health and Palomar Health about the outage.
Kaiser said at 4:30 a.m., it activated its national command center to assist with evaluating how the outage impacted care operations, computer systems and servers and to help coordinate recovery. In some cases, Kaiser activated backup systems to support continuous patient care and to secure access to medical records.
"All Kaiser Permanente hospitals and medical offices remain open for care and service, and we are continuing to monitor our operations as we work to restore all affected systems," a statement from the hospital said.
Sharp said the Microsoft outage has not impacted patient care, and no procedures have been canceled at this time.
UCSD said there are no impacts for its hospital system.
Palomar said its systems had "a brief and minimal impact" from the outage, which has since been fixed.
Earlier Friday, a message on Palomar's website said phones, faxes and its portal were "rapidly being restored." The message also said its locations in Poway and Escondido had not been affected.
Our newsroom is awaiting a response from Scripps.
COURTS
San Diego Superior Court officials said Friday’s widespread IT outage affected the court’s computer systems, but they are reminding those with court dates to report to their assigned courtroom as scheduled.
Court officials sent the following news release:
“Courtrooms are prioritized to be repaired and several are already operational. If you have a court date this morning, please report to the courtroom as scheduled. If you were permitted to and planned to appear remotely, you may do so, however, you may need to wait in the Microsoft Teams ‘lobby’ if that courtroom has not yet been repaired. We hope that all courtrooms will be operational later this morning.
The computers in the business offices will also require manual repairs. We are making every effort to repair all computers today, however, litigants should anticipate delays in the business offices and with administrative functions.
Online applications including the Court Index, Registers of Actions, payment portals, eFiling and telephone systems are operational. The public is urged to visit the Court’s website at sdcourt.ca.gov to handle traffic tickets or obtain court information.”
By 11 a.m., the superior court sent a new statement to 10News, saying most courtrooms were operational by 10 a.m., and said the rest would be operating as normal soon.
"Many business offices are also operating normally, though with some minor related delays. All business offices are anticipated to be fully operational by noon today," the statement said.
MTS
San Diego MTS posted on X around 9 a.m. that some of its staff were struggling to cross the border to come to work because of the outage.
"This may result in missed or delayed service... Thanks for your patience," the tweet said.
#MTSAlert Due to the global Windows outage, some of our staff are experiencing major delays getting across the border to come to work. This may result in missed or delayed service. Check the alerts and detours page for info as it becomes available. Thanks for your patience.
— San Diego MTS (@sdmts) July 19, 2024
DMV
The California Department of Motor Vehicles said it's offering limited services at its offices. In an email to 10News, the DMV said its online services and kiosks are not affected, so customers should use those.
"The DMV continues to monitor the situation and apologizes for any inconvenience," the email says.
AIRPORT
Thousands of flights worldwide were either canceled or delayed Friday morning, per FlightAware. More than 5,000 U.S. flights were delayed, and just under 2,000 were canceled.
At the San Diego International Airport, about 79 flights were delayed, while just under 20 were canceled as of 11 a.m. Even though flights have resumed after ground stops, some airlines are warning passengers that disruptions to service could last throughout the day.
The San Diego Airport Authority sent out a memo via social media urging passengers to check their flight status before coming to the airport.
