IN PINK AFTER ‘BLUE’
Region ’Net recovery
Airports, hospitals, government offices and businesses continued working to get back on track Saturday following Friday’s “blue screen” global tech outage that caused widespread chaos.
More than 100 flights were delayed or canceled at the metro region’s three major airports following the crash, caused when US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike sent out a faulty overnight software update to computers running Microsoft Windows.
Area hospitals and the MTA said they were mostly back in business, but the worldwide effort to recover from the massive crash was slow and ongoing, and it could be several days before the global flight system returns to normal.
As of noon Saturday, 132 flights at Kennedy Airport, 232 at La Guardia and 251 at Newark had been canceled in a 24-hour span, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. Another 119 flights were delayed across the three airports Saturday afternoon.
Worldwide, nearly 23,750 flights were delayed or canceled, according to FlightAware.
Global IT issues could continue to affect flights through the weekend, the Federal Aviation Administration said on X.
And while airlines including American and United are issuing waivers for those hit with related delays and cancellations, it will be days before the system is completely unsnarled.
On the rails, some MTA travel information screens went dark, but the agency said as of Friday evening, all arrival information for trains and buses was restored.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, which paused any procedures requiring anesthesia amid the outage, later said that “most” of its systems and procedures had resumed. One hospital worker told The Post that many surgeries were delayed due to the crash, but added, “All of our patients are fine. It wasn’t . . . complete chaos.”
The hospital’s scheduling system was down, another staffer added, but could be accessed using Google Chrome. “So that went on as usual,” he said.
Five out of eight computers used for scheduling at NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue were down, said one source, but employees were able to get by with the three working ones. Patient care at many of the city’s major hospitals was unaffected, officials said in a press conference Friday.
Gov. Hochul on Saturday reported “significant progress” in restoring the affected systems. “Thousands of staff across dozens of agencies are working around the clock throughout the weekend . . . to remediate systems,” she said. “Critical life safety services, including 911, remain operational, and New Yorkers should continue to call 911.”