A faulty software update caused technological havoc worldwide on Friday, grounding flights, knocking down some financial companies and news outlets, and disrupting hospitals, small businesses and government offices.
The breadth of the outages highlighted the fragility of a digitized world dependent on just a few providers for key computing services.
The trouble was sparked by an update issued by cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike and only affected its customers running Microsoft Windows, the world’s most popular operating system for personal computers. It was not the result of hacking or a cyberattack, according to CrowdStrike, which apologized and said a fix was on the way.
While Tampa Bay was not immune to the outage, much of the region had recovered from service delays by noon. Though the airports, largely the most affected businesses in the area, experienced hundreds of flight delays and cancellations.
Here’s a recap of what happened.
4:20 p.m. Ruth Eckerd Hall box office back up and running
After some glitches this morning, Ruth Eckerd Hall’s box office is back up for purchasing tickets.
“We are humming like a machine,” said Katie Pedretty, director of public relations.
Earlier in the day, the venue posted on social media that ticket sales were unavailable online and at the Raymond James Central Ticket Office.
—Maggie Duffy
4:10 p.m. Flight cancellations around Tampa Bay
At Tampa International Airport, more than half of flights — 56% — were canceled or delayed by Friday afternoon. Out of 508 flights, 237 were delayed and 49 were canceled.
The cancellation rate at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport was even higher. Allegiant Air, the main commercial airline that operates out of the airport, canceled all morning flights in response to the outage. By Friday afternoon, 14 of Allegiant’s 26 flights for the day — 53% — had been canceled.
Allegiant canceled four flights scheduled after 2 p.m. One flight, bound for Albany, New York, took off at 3:57 p.m. today. Another flight heading to Greensboro, North Carolina, took off at 2:30 p.m.
A statement from Allegiant posted to social media about 3:15 p.m. said the airline started recovering its systems at 2 p.m. Customers whose flights were canceled will have the option to rebook their flights or receive a full refund.
—Shauna Muckle
3:45 p.m. Hope for liftoff at Tampa International Airport
Mildred Hicks headed to Tampa International Airport Friday excited for the weekend to come. It’s her 70th birthday and she’s headed to New York with her daughter. The trip was a surprise until just a week ago.
The pair arrived at the airport around 12:30 p.m. and have been trying to kill time since. At first, Hicks was told her flight was pushed to 4 p.m., then 5, then 6, then 7.
Want breaking news in your inbox?
Subscribe to our free News Alerts newsletter
You’ll receive real-time updates on major issues and events in Tampa Bay and beyond as they happen.
Loading...
You’re all signedup!
Want more of our free, weekly newslettersinyourinbox? Let’sgetstarted.
Explore all your optionsHicks used to live in New York City and has only been back a couple of times. She has been counting the days until their trip since they found out.
There was a flight to Detroit canceled at the gate right next to hers. But Hicks didn’t dare ask if their flight might be canceled.
”If we don’t say that, it might not happen, right?” she said.
—Lesley Cosme Torres
3:15 p.m. Birthday party in baggage claim
The St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport’s baggage claim is desolate — except for three teenage girls and artwork screaming: “Welcome to Clearwater. Home of the original Hooters.”
Lilah Mitchell, 17, is slumped on the rough baggage claim carpet. It was her first time on a Florida beach, an early birthday and graduation gift.
She turns 18 tomorrow — a milestone that will either be spent in the airport or on a 25-hour-long bus ride. Hotel prices skyrocketed over the weekend, and renting a car seems unlikely.
Allegiant Air only offers flights to the Tri-Cities Tennessee airport on Mondays and Fridays.
”We don’t have a Florida license and we didn’t have a credit card with us,” said Lilah’s sister, Meila.
Cheers to adulthood.
Meanwhile, nearly every passenger at the checkpoint for gates 2-6 has their head bowed. They aimlessly scroll and shuffle between apps, popping in earbuds to enter into an unknown world of audio — anything to drown out Taylor Swift’s “Mine.”
At least there’s Wi-Fi during a worldwide Microsoft outage.
—Gabrielle Lazor
3 p.m. Youth group in for a long ride
For 42 students who are a part of Centerbranch Church’s youth group, a charter bus finally brought hope of returning home to Bridgeport, West Virginia, on Friday afternoon.
But it will be another 17 hours until they reach their promised land. The middle and high schoolers, along with six chaperones, have been stranded in St. Pete-Clearwater International airport since 6 a.m.
They expected to arrive in West Virginia on the cushy leather seats of Allegiant Air. But because of the global Microsoft outage, it will be country roads taking them home, not unlike those popularized by singer John Denver.
The youth group arrived in Florida on Monday to attend a Youth Fire Conference in Tampa. But even with eight hours of waiting behind them and 17 hours of driving to go, spirits seemed bright.
The upcoming road trip was welcome. It was Andrew Ward’s final church camp. The recent high school graduate was reckoning with the reality of getting older.
“I was actually really excited,” said Ward. “This is an extension of it, and I get to hang out with some of my best friends.”
Airport staff packed suitcases into the bus’s underbelly. Chaperones herded the kids. They’ll be driving through the night.
”It’s kinda nerve-wracking to know that one system could go down, and it affects everything,” said Ward.
—Gabrielle Lazor
1:45 p.m. Nearly four dozen canceled flights at Tampa International Airport
Though flight operations at Tampa International Airport had resumed by 10:30 a.m. Friday, the number of delayed and canceled flights continued to rise into the early afternoon.
By 1:30 p.m., the airport was reporting 47 canceled flights and 218 delayed flights out of a total of 508.
Read more on the situation at local airports here.
—Tony Marrero
1:20 p.m. Coffee shop recovery
At 1 p.m., the Starbucks on 34th Street North near 22nd Avenue North in St. Petersburg seemed to be recovering from a brutal morning shift. Friday morning, baristas used a Sharpie to write drink orders on cups like it was 2012 again, but their label maker returned to printing orders.
Not all nostalgia is lost, though. The app’s mobile order is down, forcing customers to relive the embarrassment of spewing a paragraph-long order for all in line to hear.
Dunkin’s mobile order appeared to be operating as usual.
An emailed statement from a Starbucks spokesperson confirmed that the company is “experiencing impacts due to a widespread third-party systems outage, resulting in a temporary outage of our mobile order ahead and pay features.”
The “vast majority” of its stores are able to serve customers in stores and drive-thrus.
“We are doing everything we can to bring all systems online as quickly as possible. We apologize for any inconvenience.”
—Gabrielle Lazor and Maggie Duffy
12:52 p.m. How the disruption affected theme parks
Most Universal and Disney theme park operations in the U.S. were running fine by midday on Friday, though Disneyland Paris turnstiles were not working on Friday morning, and in Hong Kong guests could not access their hotel rooms with their mobile apps like usual. Busch Gardens in Tampa said it had no disruptions.
To show how critical technology has become, a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, saw an elevation of a 2-year-old post from cnet.com with the headline “Disney parks were already facing heat from fans over tech reliance. Then an #AWS outage came along...”
All theme parks have become increasingly reliant on their apps and technology for park tickets, hotel reservations and fast passes to cut in line at the rides. Some minor support functions were disrupted at Disney World, a spokesperson said, but the rest of the resorts and parks were largely unaffected. But without their park apps, the turnstiles at Disneyland Paris had to be manually opened by the staff on Friday.
—Sharon Kennedy Wynne
12: 37 p.m. No big problems at Port Tampa Bay
So far, it’s smooth sailing for cruise ships, including Margaritaville At Sea’s “Islander.” “Port Tampa Bay has seen no significant impact to its operations or shipment schedules due to the outage,” said a spokesperson.
—Gabrielle Lazor
12 p.m. Local banks report minimal issues
Some Tampa Bay area banks did not feel the impact of the internet outage. Truist Bank and Suncoast Credit Union are open.
But the widespread outage is impacting Fifth Third Bank, with some employees unable to log into their computers, said Beth Oates, a spokesperson for the bank.
“We are working to address the issue and reinstate access. At this time, impact to our customers and branch network is minimal and our digital and self-service channels are operational. We are monitoring the situation closely,” she said.
—Lesley Cosme Torres
11:53 a.m. Issues resolved at Hillsborough court administrator’s office
The Hillsborough County court administrator’s office reported that court systems were impacted by the CrowdStrike outage, but their technology department was able to correct the problem before court began this morning.
The Pinellas County clerk of court reported that none of their systems were affected by the outage. They did have one third-party application that they use for public records that was impacted. The company that controls that application is working to restore it, said clerk’s spokesperson Shawn Aligood.
The Pasco County clerk of court, meanwhile, reported that they are not experiencing any issues related to the outage.
—Dan Sullivan
11:30 a.m. How local hospitals are faring
Tampa Bay hospitals were not immune to the global internet outage affecting Microsoft but said that patient care was not affected.
AdventHealth, which operates 13 hospitals in its West Florida division, said some hospital computers that use Microsoft had been impacted.
“A fix has been deployed and systems are recovering,” the hospital chain said in a statement. “We have protocols in place so when IT issues occur we are still able to provide care for our communities.”
BayCare Health Systems reported experiencing minor impacts overnight that were resolved by early morning. The nonprofit runs 16 hospitals in the Tampa Bay region.
Tampa General Hospital officials said patient care operations were not impacted and the hospital is accepting appointments and providing care.
HCA Healthcare said its health care systems are operating but it is working with vendors to understand any issues they are facing.
“We do not expect the incident to impact our ability to provide care to our patients,” said spokesperson Deb McKell in an email.
—Christopher O’Donnell
11:24 a.m. Problems at dentist’s office, gas station
At Dental Arts Ninth Street in St. Petersburg, Zabrina Londono had to restart her computer because she couldn’t listen to her messages or print documents that came in via fax. Londono was unsure if her computer issues were related to the Microsoft outage, but she thought it was odd — especially after having trouble pumping gas this morning at a station on South Belcher Road, where she overheard others talking about the outage.
—Gabrielle Lazor
11:19 a.m. Allegiant cancels all flights at St. Pete-Clearwater airport until afternoon
Almost all flights were canceled at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport until 2 p.m. Allegiant, the main commercial airline that flies through St. Pete-Clearwater, announced all its flights scheduled to depart from the airport before 2 p.m. would be canceled.
At least 12 Allegiant flights were canceled. Fifteen Allegiant flights later in the afternoon remained scheduled as of 10:50 a.m.
—Shauna Muckle
10:30 a.m. Flight operations “fully resumed” at Tampa International
In a post on X Friday morning, Tampa International Airport officials said “many flights” have been affected by the outage, and several were delayed or canceled Friday morning.
At 10:30 a.m., the airport issued an updated news release: “Flight operations have fully resumed at TPA. We encourage passengers to check their flight status directly with their airlines.”
— Ellen Clarke
Crazy visual: 12-hour timelapse shows plane traffic over the US with the FAA grounding Delta, United, and American Airlines flights during this morning's outage pic.twitter.com/KRuL3HjZVf
— Morning Brew ☕️ (@MorningBrew) July 19, 2024
10:47 a.m. Effect on local law enforcement, courts
The Hillsborough clerk of court reported that the outage affected their systems early Friday morning, but that the issues were quickly resolved.
Law enforcement across Tampa Bay was broadly unaffected by the Microsoft outage, spokespeople said.
The Pinellas and Hillsborough County sheriff’s offices both reported no major effects to their systems.
Police departments in St. Petersburg, Tampa, Clearwater and Largo also indicated that no internal issues arose from the outage. The Florida Highway Patrol has also not observed any issues this morning, according to a spokesperson.
Federal courts for the Middle District of Florida, which includes the Tampa Bay area, reported that all court divisions were operational Friday morning, with hearings occurring normally in all courthouses.
— Dan Sullivan, Brandon Kingdollar
10:38 a.m. Gym back on track
Early Friday morning, the application used to book classes at Orange Theory was down at all Tampa Bay area gyms. At both the 6:15 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. classes, gymgoers had to sign up in person, causing some confusion for the staff and guests. But as of 9 a.m., everything was back up and running, said Kristine Bui, who works at the downtown St. Petersburg location of the gym. ”We got a message from IT about an hour ago saying that everything was up and working,” Bui said. “Our system is rolling right now. We’re good.”
— Helen Freund
10:07 a.m. Grocery and restaurants
At Whole Foods in St. Petersburg, Register No. 1 is the only one working, the other three are down. Two out of six self-checkout kiosks are down. The store uses an app called “Innerview” for employees to check their schedules. About 90% of employees woke up to blank schedules, so they were calling into work asking if they had been fired.
First Watch confirmed that all of their restaurants in the Tampa Bay area currently cannot process credit cards due to the outage.
— Gabrielle Lazor and Helen Freund
