By: Tracie Carter
Early Friday morning, a major Microsoft outage began, triggered by an update to the software of the cybersecurity company CrowdStrike.
The outage has affected systems globally, including those of airlines, banks, and hospitals.
In Mercer County, the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) and Office of Information Technology (OIT) have been actively addressing the issue.
Some county computers and systems were impacted by the outage, and staff is working diligently to restore full functionality.
Mercer County officials said fortunately, no critical services at the county or municipal levels have been reported as affected.
The 911 system has remained fully operational throughout the incident.
While some Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) systems experienced temporary disruptions, they have since been restored, thanks to pre-existing redundancies that ensured emergency dispatch services continued uninterrupted.
Mercer County's major hospitals, Capital Health and RWJ Hamilton, reported minimal system interruptions but confirmed that patient care was not impacted.
Trenton-Mercer Airport also reported no interruptions in its systems, although some flights were canceled due to the outage affecting Frontier Airlines and other airports nationwide.
All Mercer County offices remain open, and officials have asked the public for patience as efforts continue to bring all systems back online as quickly as possible.