Local impact of global IT outage at CVG, hospitals, 911 centers, gas stations (2024)

Published: Jul. 19, 2024 at 3:32 AM EDT|Updated: 7 hours ago

CINCINNATI (WXIX) - All flights from several major US airlines – including Delta, United and American Airlines – are grounded Friday morning due to a global Microsoft outage impacting computers and communications, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and media reports.

The ground stop impacts all flights from the airlines, regardless of their destination.

Flight delays began overnight and continued into the late afternoon on Friday.

Steve Gustafson, who was flying home to Virginia, was scheduled to arrive home at 7 pm. tonight. He had waited at CVG for 12 hours.

“(I’m) just a little frustrated,” Gustafson. “I wish we would have known before we left.”

According to FlightAware data, more than 5,300 flights were delayed in the U.S. and more than 1,900 flights were canceled. Globally 29,000 flights were delayed and 3,200 were canceled.

Airlines weren’t able to say when operations would resume.

Be sure to check your flight status before heading to the airport.

Delta Airlines issued a travel waiver Friday that allows customers to make changes to their itinerary via http://Delta.com or the Fly Delta app.

As of 7:53 a.m., Delta announced some flight departures, explaining why some of them were paused.

American Airlines also issued a travel waiver for those impacted by the outage.

Some Ohio BMV locations and services might not be available Friday, according to an official statement.

A BMV official said they “are working to restore services as quickly as possible.”

The global outage also hit several 911 centers across the Tri-State with phones and/or some county computers going down starting around 1 a.m. Friday.

Dispatch lines in Butler and Warren counties were both impacted.

So were West Chester Township’s 911 phone lines, according to township spokeswoman Barb Wilson.

A dispatch supervisor in Hamilton County said 911 calls in areas without service automatically rolled over to them.

Hamilton County dispatchers handled the extra 911 calls without issue, she said.

She said they directly communicated with first responders in those other counties over police and fire radios.

No serious problems were reported and most if not all in the northern Cincinnati suburbs were back up by dawn.

Butler County’s 911 phone lines went down about 1 a.m. Friday and didn’t come back up until around 6:30 a.m., Chief Deputy Tony Dwyer tells FOX19 NOW.

Staff immediately came in overnight and scrambled to get the 911 phone lines back up as quickly as possible.

He confirmed Butler County’s 911 calls are among those that automatically bounced over to Hamilton County 911 dispatchers while Butler’s system was down.

No 911 call went unanswered, he said.

“Thankfully most of our county was quiet last night so there was not a noticeable impact that we are aware of.”

Middletown police also experienced phone outages including its 911 lines, the police department wrote on Facebook.

They directed residents who needed police or fire assistance to still call and then if they couldn’t get through, to call Monroe police or the Ohio State Highway Patrol “and they will send the information to us.”

In Northern Kentucky, Boone, Campbell and Kenton counties all reported their 911 phone lines were operational, however, the non-emergency phones still went down due to the Microsoft outage.

Kenton County Emergency Communications Center Executive Director Ashley Hawks said they started to see a loss in technology around 1 a.m. after a couple of their phone positions began to shut down unexpectedly.

“We didn’t lose functionality of receiving phone calls at that time,” explained Hawks. “It just lessened the number of call-take positions that were available to us.”

Hawks said they experienced internet service outages before, but nothing like what happened on Friday.

“I personally have not seen anything of this magnitude,” Hawks said. “There have been incidents where things have happened with internet service and our phones are actually voice-over-internet phones, so they have gone down previously. However, not as widespread.”

Hospitals

Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Avondale is impacted, a spokesman confirmed shortly after 3 a.m. Friday.

“We have a number of Microsoft-based systems that are affected; however, we are using our standard backup processes to ensure patient care is uninterrupted,” the hospital said in a news release early Friday.

Children’s surgical and radiology/imaging patients at all locations should arrive at the scheduled time but delays are likely, so families will want to plan for that.

The hospital said all appointments resumed as normal starting at 10 a.m. Appointments after that time are on as scheduled, they added.

At 3 p.m., Cincinnati Children’s said they have “restored patient care operations with some minor exceptions, which we are actively addressing. We expect those issues to be resolved soon. Cincinnati Children’s will contact families whose appointments were canceled so they can be rescheduled.”

For questions about surgeries Friday at the main hospital in Avondale, call 513-636-4517, or 513-803-9820 to reach the Liberty Township location.

All other non-surgical clinic and office appointments before 10 a.m. were canceled.

The Schubert Research Clinic is closed until 10 a.m.

Urgent care and emergency departments remain open.

No issues were reported at the UC Air Care medical helicopter service, Christ Hospital and St. Elizabeth hospitals in Northern Kentucky, representatives said.

“UC Health services are currently not disrupted by this morning’s global IT outage. Operations are continuing as normal,” a spokeswoman said.

Gas stations

Speedway gas stations are impacted nationally and locally, where at least three locations are closed in Northern Kentucky: one in Newport and two in Covington.

One of the Covington locations shut down at 1:30 a.m. Friday, according to an employee there who spoke with us around 6:30 a.m.

Other gas stations like the Circle K in Springdale and Thornton’s in West Chester Township off Interstate 75 at Tylersville Road are open.

Two of Thornton’s three front registers went down around 2 a.m. Friday due to computer outages, leaving just one working to ring up customers, an employee said.

Gas pumps were working fine, she said at 3 a.m.

Banks

All banks are open and no local ones appear to have any issues.

Sheri Bruce of Erlanger contacted FOX19 NOW shortly after 5 a.m. Friday and said she logged onto the Truist banking website and saw: “Service is not available.” There was no explanation, she added.

Truist is a national bank with branches all over, including in Northern Kentucky.

Branches were open as usual on Friday morning, FOX19 NOW crews observed when we checked locations including in Newport.

“Our branches, care centers, and digital banking services are open to serve clients,” according to a bank spokeswoman.

US Bank ATMs are working and customers can use their mobile banking app, FOX19 NOW confirmed.

Go Metro - Cincinnati

Metro Bus riders were unable to use the regional bus service’s real-time app that tracks buses, according to Go Metro Sr. Vice President of External Affairs Brandy Jones.

Customers will have to depend on the scheduled times, which can be found on Metro’s website.

Starbucks

One of America’s most popular coffee roasters is still feeling the effects of Friday morning’s outage.

Starbucks spokesperson Sam Jeffries got back with FOX19 NOW at 2:30 p.m. to report the mobile order app and online pay features are temporarily not working.

“Starbucks is among those companies experiencing impacts due to a widespread third-party systems outage, resulting in a temporary outage of our mobile order ahead and pay features. We continue to welcome and serve customers in the vast majority of our stores and drive-thrus and are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience,” Jeffries wrote in a statement.

Customers can still go in and order coffee in person.

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