A technology outage affecting airports, banks, hospitals and governments around the globe Friday morning had its share of impacts in Ouray County and the surrounding region, though most problems seemed to be resolved by mid-morning.
The issue stemmed from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike deploying a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows. The outage was not a security incident or cyberattack.
Ouray City Administrator Silas Clarke told the Plaindealer that problems began about 10 p.m. Thursday, and that the outage locked every single city-owned computer — roughly 50 — along with four servers. He said the Center for Internet Security, a cybersecurity nonprofit to which the city belongs, sent an email around 3 a.m. providing instructions on how to unlock computers. He said city information technology staff began unlocking computers at 5:30 a.m.
Ouray County Emergency Manager Glenn Boyd said county information technology staff had to fix computers that were turned on when the update from CrowdStrike was installed. The county did not identify the number of computers affected.
“The impact is quite minimal,” Boyd said, noting that by 10 a.m. the county was “almost completely recovered already.”
The outage did not affect the Western Colorado Regional Dispatch Center in Montrose, which handles calls for Ouray County’s law enforcement agencies and fire departments, Boyd said.
At Montrose Regional Airport, only two arriving flights were delayed, according to Montrose County spokeswoman Katie Yergensen. A Dallas-Fort Worth flight originally scheduled to arrive at 9:59 a.m. was pushed back to 10:38 a.m., and a flight from Chicago that was supposed to land at 11:46 a.m. was delayed until 1:26 p.m., according to an update on the airport’s website just after 10 a.m.
It appeared, however, that several United Airlines departing and arriving flights were delayed Friday afternoon.
Montrose Regional Hospital was also affected and was still working to resolve some issues as of 12:30 p.m., according to chief marketing officer Leann Tobin.
In a statement, she said the hospital temporarily had trouble accessing patient medical images, but that those issues have since been resolved. The hospital’s emergency department, likewise, was temporarily unable to access the electronic system and relied on paper medical records for documentation, she said.
The hospital is still addressing technical difficulties with a software program that allows caregivers to dictate notes and documentation into computers by speaking. She said there may be delays in documentation and appointment wait times. She said the hospital is using alternative methods for documentation.
“We want to assure our community that patient care remains our top priority throughout this event,” she said.
Citizens State Bank reported a couple of computers were impacted by the outage but that branches in Ridgway and Ouray were otherwise operating as normal.
San Miguel Power Association posted on social media that it was experiencing a “disruption in our operations communications” but that it had been resolved by around 10 a.m.
