9-1-1 Dispatch Centers across Country Disrupted by Global IT Outage

A global IT outage disrupted 9-1-1 systems across the country Friday, as officials in multiple states scrambled to address the impact to emergency services.

The Phoenix Police Department's computerized dispatch center was affected by the outage, according to a social media post by the agency. Although the dispatch center was still operational, operators needed to use pen and paper to manually deploy officers and ambulances, the Arizona Republic reports.

"City IT is working diligently to find a workaround until the outage has been restored," the department stated.

"We are working off cards right now ... We have no internet. We have no CAD ... we're still working on it," a dispatcher told CNN.

Service was restored shortly before 8 a.m., according to a department social media post.

Over 3,000 miles to the north, the Alaska Department of Public Safety and other agencies throughout the state encountered similar problems. A post on the Alaska State Troopers' Facebook feed stated the problem had been resolved just before 4:30 a.m.

Other states with 9-1-1 and non-emergency dispatch services affected by the outage include: Ohio, Minnesota, Indiana and New Hampshire, according to CNET. 

A cybersecurity firm's software update is being partly blamed for Friday's outage, CNN reports. An advisory from the company—CrowdStrike—said its engineers had addressed the problem, which affected computers running Microsoft Windows, leaving machines working on Mac or Linux operating systems unharmed.

Along with police and emergency services, the outage also impacted airlines, banks and other businesses and institutions. So far, the outage's biggest victim has been the Olympics, which is preparing to begin next week in Paris. Organizers, however, have said that they have backup plans in place to deal with the problem, NBC News reports.