East TN impacted by global tech outage

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. ( WATE ) — East Tennessee governments and services are experiencing technical issues Friday after a global technology outage disrupted airlines, banks, businesses, governments, hospitals and media outlets seemingly overnight.

Airlines servicing flights out of Knoxville and Nashville were affected, with the Federal Aviation Administration issuing a ground stop, causing flight delays. Tennessee’s Department of Safety and Homeland Security shared that local Driver Services Centers may be unable to process transactions.

Pilot, which is headquartered in Knoxville, shared that they are experiencing “some disruptions as a result of the global CrowdStrike issue” They added that their stores are “open, fueling and continue to serve guests across North America with minimal disruptions. We are working to resolve any outages across our systems as quickly as possible.”

The City of Sevierville shared that they are “experiencing technical disruptions in various software systems” due to the outage. Some of the systems impacted include the ability to receive utility and tax payments. They added that public safety services, including police, fire, and 911 are fully operational.

The City of Knoxville shared Friday at 9:22 a.m. that it was experiencing disruptions but emergency services were still fully operational.

“The City is experiencing disruptions due to the nationwide tech outage. City IS and department personnel have been working to resolve those issues as quickly as possible. All essential services— 911, police, fire & EMS response to calls for service —remain entirely operational.”

City of Knoxville, on X, July 19, 2024 at 9:22 a.m.

The Knoxville Police Department stated that “appropriate personnel have been working since early this morning to resolve those issues as quickly as possible.”

Knox County government services were also impacted by the outage. While the county clerk could process passports, notary, marriage licenses, as of 9:30 a.m. they could not do driver’s licenses and DMV-related business, nor anything dealing with the state. However, that could change at any moment, according to Cindy Wyrick with the Knox County administration office.

“The engineers are having to work on each computer individually,” she said.

Chris Davis with the Knox County Election Commission shared that the outage will not impact early voting.

“All of our computers, like everyone else’s across the county, were affected. However, Knox County IT department did an amazing job of getting all of them up and running before the polls opened.”

Chris Davis with the Knox County Election Commission

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Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike shared with the AP that the issue thought to be the cause of the outage was not a security incident or cyberattack . The company said the problem occurred when it deployed a faulty update to computers running Microsoft Windows.

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