Global Microsoft Outage Impacts Parts Of Nantucket

A global Microsoft computer outage occurred Friday morning following a software update by Crowdstrike, a cybersecurity company utilized by Microsoft, that went awry - and parts of Nantucket felt its impact.

The Nantucket Cottage Hospital sent out an urgent notice Friday morning that due to the outage, many of their systems were impacted. The emergency department and urgent access remained open and available.

“Many elective procedures will need to be rescheduled,” NCH vice president of strategy Chris Glowacki told the Current. “If you have questions about a scheduled appointment call 508-825-1000.”

Mass General Brigham sent out a press release just after 9 a.m. acknowledging that the software outage had affected many of their systems and due to the severity of the issue, all previously scheduled non-urgent surgeries, procedures, and medical visits were cancelled Friday, July 19.

“Mass General Brigham remains open to provide care to patients with urgent health concerns in our clinics and emergency departments, and we continue to care for all patients currently receiving care in our hospitals,” Adam Bagni, MGB Director of Communications, said. “We have dedicated every available resource to resolve this issue as quickly as possible, and we apologize for the inconvenience this has caused our patients. It is our highest priority to ensure that our patients receive the safest care possible.”

The Nantucket Registry of Motor Vehicles also experienced computer issues and were unable to process transactions until Friday afternoon.

The outage also caused delays and cancellations for American Airlines, Delta, and United flights across the country. Delta eventually cancelled its scheduled flights on Friday, but Nantucket airport manager Noah Karberg said their operating systems remained functional.  

"Each airline has its separate review and notification strategy, and I would defer to those," he added.

Nantucket police chief Jody Kasper told the Current that she and fire chief Michael Cranson first learned of the incident at 3:59 a.m. She said it was quickly determined that the outage was not impacting the operational or communication capabilities of Nantucket Police or Nantucket Fire.

"We are operating normally," she said.

While broadcast television in certain areas was been taken down by the outage, Nantucket Community Television reported no problems when reached for comment.

The Chamber of Commerce had not received any reports of affected businesses Friday morning. Some businesses around the country had reported issues with point of sales software, but no affected businesses on Nantucket could be immediately identified.

The Steamship Authority was not impacted by the outage in any way according to communications officer Sean Driscoll and the ferries should be running on time.

The TransLoc app used by the Nantucket Regional Transit Authority, which operates the island's Wave buses, was not displaying the locations of buses or their expected arrival times on Friday. The buses, however, ran on time and did not appear to be impacted. Transit Authority representatives could not be immediately reached to confirm if the issue is related to Crowdstrike, but similar problems reported across the country were definitively linked to the outage and suggest a likely connection.

Some banks with branches on the island, including Bank of America, saw significant spikes in website and transaction issues. There is no confirmation yet that the problems with Bank of America were caused by the outages but it seems likely. Some banking problems were officially connected to the outages.