A global system outage caused major issues worldwide and in Arizona on Friday, causing police dispatch centers to handwrite messages and health care facilities to close.
The problems were tied to a global outage involving Microsoft systems. On Thursday, the technology company reported problems with its cloud computing platform, which affected its customers worldwide.
Arizona's emergency response systems at major police agencies and health care providers were snarled as part of a global tech outage linked to an issue with a large cybersecurity firm. Here's what to know about how Arizona was affected by the outage.
Police departments
The following police and first responders were affected were affected:
- Phoenix police: The department's computerized 911 dispatch center was affected, department spokesperson Donna Rossi said. The department's systems were restored early Friday morning, according to a post on X, formerly Twitter.
- Mesa police: The department's communication center was affected, but it was running again as of 9 a.m. on Friday, officials said.
- Queen Creek police: The city confirmed it had been affected by the technology outage, including dispatch services for public safety, though 911 and nonemergency phone lines were not impacted.
- Goodyear police: Officials confirmed that Goodyear had issues with thesystems used by police and fire to write electronic reports.
- Peoria police: A spokesperson for the city said it began having dispatch issues at about 10 p.m., but all issues were resolved by 5 a.m. Friday.
- Scottsdale police: A spokesperson for the department said some systems were affected but "nothing affecting emergency 911 calls from coming in." Everything was fully operational by Friday afternoon.
Government systems affected
Gov. Katie Hobbs’ office released a detailed list of critical state services that were affected by Thursday night’s outage. The state has stepped up monitoring for issues to a Level 2, Hobbs said in a statement.
The state Department of Homeland Security was helping to triage network issues at state and local governments, as well as private businesses, Hobbs said.
As of early afternoon Friday, these services were still dealing with the outage:
- Call centers at the state’s Motor Vehicle Division offices are down, so calls are being routed to a higher level of call center.
- Cameras at some MVD offices are down, which could complicate driver's license renewal.
- The commercial vehicle permitting services at the state and international borders are not operating.
- The dynamic message boards and cameras along the state’s highway system are glitchy, with periodic outages.
- Indian Health Services has minor outages.
- Early voting centers across the counties are down. The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office was working to get them back in operation and reports there have been no security breaches.
- The Department of Revenue’s website (aztaxes.gov) was down in the morning but was operating as of Friday afternoon.
Hospitals and health care providers
The following hospitals and health care providers were affected:
- American Medical Response: A dispatcher confirmed the ambulance company was affected.
- Banner Health: The health care company was impacted by the global system outage, forcing the closure of all Banner locations except for hospitals and urgent care, officials said.
- Dignity Health: An official confirmed, "All our hospitals remain open and our staff continues to provide safe, high-quality care to our patients. We thank everyone for their patience as our teams take immediate action to restore any impacted systems."
- St. Joseph Hospital and Medical Center, part of the Dignity Health organization: Officials confirmed system outages but not the extent.
- Valleywise Health: Some IT systems were affected, but its emergency departments and trauma center were open, officials said.
Outage:911, other Phoenix area emergency systems affected by software outage
Airlines and airports affected
These airlines were affected by the outage:
- Allegiant Air
- American Airlines
- Delta Airlines
- Frontier Airlines
- Sun Country Airlines
- United Airlines
Sky Harbor was reporting flight delays due to the outage. The departures area of Terminal 4 at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was busy with travelers on Friday morning.
The check-in lines for Southwest Airlines, which had the most delayed flights on Thursday, had low traffic. But across the room, people were lined up to check in for flights with American Airlines.
Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airportflight status page showed that no arrivals or departures were scheduled for Friday morning, asAllegiant Air was affected by the outage.By Friday afternoon, several flights were listed as canceled, rescheduled or delayed.
Cities and state agencies affected
The following cities and state departments were affected:
- City of Phoenix Public Transit: Systems went down that mostly affected bus operations, but they had been restored as of Friday morning, officials said.
- Maricopa County: Officials said the county was having disruptions with permitting requests and park reservations as of Friday morning.
- Maricopa County Attorney's Office: The agency confirmed that initial appearance court was affected and case records had to be pulled by hand. The issues were resolved before 5 a.m.
- Maricopa County courts: Officials said data feeds were impacted, causing a data lapse in the eFiling system. The issue was resolved as of Friday morning.
- Maricopa County elections: Officials said some voting locations were affected.
- Glendale: Officials said the city did experience outages, but its systems were running at 98% by 8 a.m. Friday morning, except for a few workstations. Officials added that there were never any complete outages with emergency services at any point during the incident.
- Goodyear: Officials confirmed that city of Goodyear operations were affected, including systems used by police and fire to write electronic reports and systems for citywide day-to-day operations.
- Peoria: A spokesperson for the city said it began having dispatch issues at about 10 p.m., but all issues were resolved by 5 a.m. Friday.
- Pinal County: Pinal County Deputy Elections Director Matt Roberts posted on X, formerly Twitter, that computers within the county government, including the Pinal County Recorder's Office, were impacted. However, Roberts noted that no elections systems were affected.
- Queen Creek: The city confirmed it had been affected by the technology outage, including dispatch services for public safety. Spokesperson Constance Halonen Wilson said 911 and nonemergency phone lines were not impacted.
- Scottsdale: Scottsdale spokesperson Holly Peralta confirmed that the issue affected "Scottsdale and various departmental systems," though most issues were resolved. Most systems are back online or in recovery mode.
Businesses affected
The following businesses were affected by the outage:
- Circle K: Point-of-service terminals were reported down in the Phoenix area. Clerks were accepting only cash at stores.
- Clarendon Hotel: The hotel located at 401 W. Clarendon Ave. in Phoenix experienced issues early on Friday morning, but the issues had been resolved.
- Moxy Phoenix Downtown: The hotel located at 116 S. Central Ave. in Phoenix saw its systems go out at 9 p.m. on Thursday. The issue had yet to be resolved.
- Starbucks: Some locations weretaking only cash, according to multiple media reports and consumers on X were complaining about not being able to use the Starbucks mobile app.
Arizona Republic reporters Laura Daniella Sepulveda, Sasha Hupka, Jose R. Gonzalez, Jimmy Jenkins, Sam Kmack and Alexandra Hardle contributed to this article.
