911 services on the Kenai Peninsula have been restored after a faulty software update from cybersecurity company CrowdStrike disrupted Microsoft computer systems around the globe Thursday night.
According to a statement from the Kenai Peninsula Borough, the Soldotna Public Safety Communications Center was first impacted by the global outage at around 9 p.m. when dispatch staff say their 911 call stations crashed. The statement says the borough’s IT department was immediately dispatched to the 911 call center to fix the issue.
Borough Mayor Peter Micciche says four stations at the Soldotna 911 call center remained operational throughout the outage.
“Thanks to a quick response from the Soldotna Public Safety Communications Center, 911 IT Coordinator and the borough’s IT department, a global technology outage had only a minor impact on the Kenai Peninsula Borough,” Micciche said.
According to a report from Alaska Public Media, the outage impacted multiple emergency and nonemergency call centers across the state. It also impacted airlines, banks, health care providers and other services around the world.
In a statement released Friday morning, CrowdStrike apologized for the outage, saying “We understand the gravity of the situation and are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and disruption. We are working with all impacted customers to ensure that systems are back up and they can deliver the services their customers are counting on.”
As of Friday morning, Alaska State Troopers say 911 services around the state have returned to normal. If you’re experiencing an emergency on the Kenai Peninsula and 911 isn’t working, you can dial the call center’s nonemergency number at 907-262-4453.
