Summary
As the global IT outage continues, we will be pivoting our coverage to the ongoing blog run by our colleagues in the UK, which can be found here. Here’s a wrap-up of this morning’s outage impacts, largely from the US:
Flight cancellations within, into and out of the US have reached 2,042 as of 12:17pm on Friday morning due to the global IT outage. Additionally, according to FlightAware, the total number of delays within, into and out of the US is currently at 5,728.
Billboards in Times Square have gone dark amid the global IT outage. Videos posted on social media showed black screens in place of the usually animated and colorful advertisements in New York City. The Associated Press reports Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, saying that a “handful” of the more than 100 billboards in Times Square remain offline.
All of Maryland’s judiciary systems are closed to the public except for emergency matters due to the global IT outage. In a statement on X, Maryland’s judiciary wrote: “Notice: Due to the worldwide Microsoft outage, all Maryland courts, offices, and facilities will be closed to the public today but will remain open for emergency matters.”
Georgia’s department of driver services (DDS) is down due to the global IT outage. In a post on X on Friday, the state’s DDS wrote: “Due to the global Microsoft/Crowdstrike outage, DDS services are unavailable at this time. Please check back for updates.”
Fedex and UPS have both reported service delays amid the global IT outage. In a statement on Friday, Fedex said it “has activated contingency plans to mitigate impacts from a global IT outage experienced by a third party software vendor”. UPS echoed similar messages, saying: “While the UPS network is operating and delivering in all areas, there is a potential for delivery delays due to a global technology outage.”
A White House spokesperson released the following statement on the outage, per pool reports: “The president has been briefed on the CrowdStrike outage and his team is in touch with CrowdStrike and impacted entities.”
A few hospitals across the US have had to cancel non-urgent surgeries as a result of the global IT outage. In a post on X on Friday, the Boston hospital Mass General Brigham said: “Due to the severity of this issue, all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits are cancelled today.” Mount Nittany Health in Pennsylvania issued a similar statement, saying that it has had to cancel all non-emergency appointments including surgeries for Friday.
The dollar rose and stock markets fell in jittery trading today, as the global IT outage unnerved investors. The group that runs the London Stock Exchange suffered an outage that affected user access to some of its products, and Refinitiv was down earlier. By around midday in Europe, the company said its services had been restored.
Updated
Billboards in Times Square have gone dark amid the global IT outage.
Videos posted on social media showed black screens in place of the usually animated and colorful advertisements in New York City:
NEW: A global Microsoft outage also impacted NYC billboards in Times Square. READ MORE: https://t.co/G2rb8yjXLi pic.twitter.com/bHtOunJsjb
— FOX 5 NY (@fox5ny) July 19, 2024
CROWDSTRIKE OUTAGE: Airplanes grounded, banking, Microsoft and businesses disrupted after software update bug causes worldwide chaos.
— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) July 19, 2024
Times Square Billboards GO DARK in NYC.
Video by Kevin RC Wilson [email protected] to license pic.twitter.com/mBv6lsSvq6
The Associated Press reports Tom Harris, president of the Times Square Alliance, saying that a “handful” of the more than 100 billboards in Times Square remain offline.
“We’re almost back to business as usual,” he said, adding that it remains unclear whether the blackouts were due to the outage or regularly scheduled maintenance or other issues, the AP reports.
