CrowdStrike outage showing little impact in East Valley

With the town having a four-day work week and two school districts still not quite in session, the impact of the Microsoft outage tied to CrowdStrike was muted in much of the East Valley.

The Gilbert town organization works Monday-Thursday, so Friday was an off day for most employees. Still, spokesperson Jennifer Harrison said the town does not use the affected software and was otherwise just monitoring the situation for impacts, which appear to be minor.

Chandler Unified schools started classes Wednesday, JUly 17,  and had only a small bump before all systems were running again July 19, spokesperson Stephanie Ingersoll said.

"We had a brief outage of our student information system, but our amazing IT team got it back up as quickly as was possible," she said.

That’s not the case worldwide. A faulty software update for CrowdStrike, a widely used cybersecurity program, grounded flights, knocked banks and media outlets offline, and disrupted hospitals, small businesses and other services on Friday, according to the Associated Press.

Gilbert did issue a statement saying it had been notified of ancillary impacts to Gilbert Fire & Rescue’s dispatch system; however, Gilbert worked with a partner agency to implement an immediate workaround solution while the issue is troubleshooted. GFRD’s emergency response was not impacted, and all service lines remain operational, according to the town.

Town Clerk Chaveli Herrera notified candidates for town office that election sites are down.

The Higley Unified School District does not start school until Monday but spokesperson Jessica Bautista said some of the district's systems have been impacted.

“Our IT department is currently working to resolve any issues,” Bautista said by email.

Gilbert Public Schools also does not come back into session until next week, and spokesperson Dawn Mackay said the district does not run the software internally. However, some of its vendors do, and the district’s access may be affected as a result.

“We are keeping an eye on any issues and keeping our staff notified,” she said by text.

But thus far, the companies the district works with that do use it are running OK, Mackay said.

Hospitals were having more trouble. At Banner Health, hospitals, including  Banner Gateway and MD Anderson Cancer Center in Gilbert, are open for in-patient care and medical emergencies.

But most all other Banner locations are currently closed, according to the company, and the website had a notice that they are working to reopen those sites and reschedule appointments.

The hospitals for Dignity Health, which includes Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, remain open and "staff continues to provide safe, high-quality care to our patients," spokesperson Abby Kay said by email.

But she said some Dignity Health facilities have been affected by the global IT outage affecting computer systems.

We would like to invite our readers to submit their civil comments, pro or con, on this issue. Email AZOpinions@iniusa.org . Tom Blodgett can be reached by email at tblodgett@iniusa.org or follow him @sp_blodgett on X.