Some Tri-Cities flights delayed by global tech glitch. Hospital, businesses have troubles
Tri-Citians planning to fly today are advised to check the status of their flights after a global software outage affecting Microsoft Windows was felt by airlines, hospitals, banks, broadcasters and a wide variety of industries across the globe.
The Tri-Cities Airport experienced some disruptions, including the cancellation of an Allegiant flight to Las Vegas. Two Delta flights to Salt Lake City were delayed and tentatively scheduled to depart once they secured gates at their destinations.
The airport’s website, flytricities.com, appeared to be updating normally Friday morning, said Buck Taft, airport manager.
Nevertheless, he advised anyone with travel plans to confirm the status of their flight at the site and by contacting their airline.
Taft said operations were mostly smooth but he didn’t rule out the problems could have unanticipated ripple effects throughout the day.
“Things look somewhat normal, but check with your airline,” he said.
Kadlec Regional Medical Center in Richland reported that its information technology teams had worked through the night to restore key functions in the Epic electronic health record so nurses, doctors and other caregivers can access patient records and do clinical documentation.
However, other clinical applications and workstations continue to be impacted, as information technology teams continue to restore services as quickly as possible, the hospital said in a statement.
Patient safety and access to care remains the top priority, it said.
A cursory look at the websites for local cities and utility companies appeared to show that they were operating without problems.
The technical issues seemed be hitting some businesses in Tri-Cities but not others.
Tri-Citians have informally told the Herald that they were unable to pay at a local veterinarian office or to get paint mixed at Home Depot on Friday morning because of the software glitch.
The New York Times reported that the outage was traced to a software update issued by CrowdStrike, a cybersecurity firm whose software is meant to protect against hackers and breaches. The software update crashed machines running the Microsoft Windows operating system, it said.
CNBC said a fault with the update caused a cascade effect and noted the Texas-based company’s software is widely used many of the companies on the world’s Fortune 500 list, including banks, health care and energy companies.
