DMV Computers Back Online After Day-Long Outage
Updated 11/12/13 - 8:02 p.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Computers at Secretary of State's offices all across the state are back online after a day-long outage.
A spokesperson for the Secretary of State's office said they discovered the computer issue Wednesday morning, affecting all 138 of the office's facilities statewide.
IBM tackled the problem for hours, but couldn't fix it right away, adding to frustrations. The computer systems were back online by 8 p.m. Wednesday.
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Anyone who visited a state motor vehicles office on Wednesday was given a courtesy card that would allow them to jump to the front of the line at when they return after computers were up and running again. In some cases, workers tried to do some of the paperwork by hand, to cut down on wait times when computers would allow them to finish processing driver's licenses, state ID cards, and license plate stickers.
Secretary of State's office spokesman Dave Druker said a report should be available sometime Thursday, explaining what happened, but he said it does not appear the computer issue was the work of hackers.
A suburban woman WBBM spoke with at the Thompson Center office had taken her daughter out of school today to get her a state ID.
"We have been sitting waiting for 4 and a half hours... And basically, they're too busy drinking their coffee and laughing and joking to give you updates," she said. "I called the state three times and nobody has any information."
Most people at the Thompson Center seemed to be taking it all with good humor - but apparently not everyone.
"Oh, we've had some people... One guy threatened to blow somebody's head off. Yeah. Security came and he said, 'I'm going to blow your head off.'"
She said that man was escorted out - and that was the end of that.
