Borders experiencing some delays in Windsor, Ont., amid global IT outage

Border crossings and hospitals in Windsor, Ont. were experiencing delays Friday morning amid a global IT outage impacting Microsoft. 

Windsor police warned Friday morning of delays at the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and Ambassador Bridge because of the outage. 

Officers are on scene helping to direct U.S.-bound traffic at the tunnel, which is backed up onto the street. 

Tal Czudner, CEO of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, told CBC News that cars are being processed manually and are moving steadily. 

At 2:30 p.m. Czudner advised the wait time was less than 20 minutes for U.S.-bound traffic, and less than 15 minutes for incoming Canadian traffic. He said times coming back into Windsor were expected to lengthen throughout the afternoon with commuter traffic. 

Wait times had been around an hour earlier in the morning. 

 In a statement from the Ambassador Bridge, Randy Spader, the bridge's vice-president of operations said U.S. bound commercial traffic is facing longer than normal delays. Canadian-bound traffic is not affected. 

"The Ambassador Bridge is monitoring the situation and will advise once it has returned to normal operations," Spader said. 

The Federal Bridge Corporation, which operates the Blue Water Bridge in Sarnia, Ont. told CBC News there are no delays related to the CrowdStrike outage at the bridge and there are no impacts to tolls or traffic. 

Airlines, banking and some broadcasters are also affected by Friday's outage. 

According to an alert sent by global cybersecurity firm Crowdstrike to its clients and reviewed by Reuters, the company's Falcon Sensor software is causing Microsoft Windows to crash and display a blue screen.

Area hospitals using 'downtime procedures'

The problem crashed Windows machines and servers, sending them into a loop of recovery so that they couldn't restart.

Windsor Regional Hospital and other area hospitals including Erie Shores HealthCare and Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare also advised residents of delays and possible appointment cancellations on Friday morning.

In an update just after 4:30 p.m., however, the hospitals said that a majority of clinical systems had been restored and the remaining non-clinical systems would be updated over the weekend.

"While wait times have been reduced significantly due to these efforts, patients may experience minor delays over the course of the weekend. Hospitals will contact patients directly if there is an impact to appointments or procedures," the hospitals said in a joint statement through their IT provider, TransForm.

The City of Windsor says there is no impact to its services.