Microsoft outage inconveniences Seattle area, but emergency services remain functional

A global data outage has left parts of Seattle’s government and health care infrastructure without access to digitally stored files. It’s the result of a faulty security update of Microsoft operating systems.

The outage has been an inconvenience to many, but hasn’t critically impacted local emergency services or public safety systems, according to Washington State Emergency Management Division Director Robert Ezelle.

“In many cases, entities within the medical community or [government] agencies are having to operate manually or using backup… while they're working on restoring some of their primary systems,” he said.

Working on backups means going back to older ways of keeping records, said Mike Leong, a spokesperson for Sea-Mar Community Health Centers. Sea-Mar is one of many health care institutions in the region that were impacted by the faulty CrowdStrike update on Thursday night.

“There are instances of downtime where we have reverted to using paper to record and document our patient visits, and then when systems come back up, we enter the information into the electronic charts,” Leong said.

Larger health care entities in the area, including Providence Swedish and MultiCare, are taking similar measures. Many cite difficulty accessing health records and expect to have to reschedule appointments.

The University of Washington’s medical facilities, including Harborview, are still operating as usual and officials don’t expect to have to reschedule appointments, said spokesperson Susan Gregg.

Tim Pfarr, a spokesperson for the Washington State Hospital Association, said people should still seek emergency health care if necessary.

At Sea-Tac Airport, the outage has mostly impacted Delta Airlines and its customers, according to Port of Seattle spokesperson Perry Cooper.

Because Sea-Tac doesn’t see a high volume of layovers, “we don't see the big jam congestion of passengers and travelers,” Cooper added.

Ezelle, with the state’s Emergency Management Division, said this outage is a good reminder:

“We need [technology] to be able to sustain life and our business practices — how we live our lives…we need to be prepared for when there are interruptions.”