State network outage darkens licensing, driver exam stations across South Dakota
Power failure blamed for crash of government services systems
A power failure at a critical state facility brought South Dakota’s vehicle licensing and titling services to a halt Tuesday, leaving thousands unable to renew registrations, transfer titles or take driver’s license exams.
The outage has darkened county treasurers’ offices across the state as well as state Department of Public Safety exam stations, according to officials, and is also stalling multiple state-run websites.
“Computer issue — no registrations can be printed,” read a sign greeting arrivals at the Minnehaha County Treasurer’s Office on Tuesday afternoon.
The Bureau of Information and Technology confirmed the outage in a message to callers.
“Our team has an important announcement. There has been a loss of power in one of our facilities, which is causing widespread issues. We have staff working on the issue. We will keep you posted as information comes available. If you currently have service, we recommend you do not restart or log off your computer until further notice,” the bureau’s automated line said.
The Department of Public Safety also acknowledged the outage, noting on its social media pages that “drivers licence exam stations will be closed until the network service returns.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, officials had not provided an estimate for when systems would be restored.
Lisa Rahja, a spokeswoman for BIT, said in an email: “This morning, electrical power to the State Data Center was impacted. The event affected all state hosted services and some network communications. The State Engineer and BIT technical staff have investigated the root cause and are taking measures to remediate. We will have updates when more information is available.”
