If you were hoping to get some business taken care of today at the local Office of Motor Vehicles, you were out of luck as a fire at the state police data center left OMVs across the state unable to process any transactions.
You might have better luck later this afternoon, or if nothing else, by Friday morning, says Meghan Parrish, spokeswoman for the Division of Administration.
“We are re-routing systems where possible and expect to have all systems back up today,” Parrish tells The Associated Press.
Parrish describes the fire’s cause as an electrical malfunction in a power supply. State police spokesman Maj. Doug Cain says the morning fire at the data center shut down all automated systems at the Department of Public Safety, which includes the motor vehicles offices.
The problem disrupted administrative processes and shut down department-wide email and Internet systems. That means state police can’t process handgun permits and fingerprint background checks, and troopers can’t access motor vehicles information at traffic stops, Cain says.
But the most obvious problem for the public came at OMV locations.
“Virtually every motor vehicles office in the state is unable to process transactions,” Cain says. “We’re going to continue to be staffed up with the hopes that the system will come back online, but all they can do is turn people away” until then.
Cain said technicians at the data center in Baton Rouge were working this afternoon to restore the systems and get them back up and running.
Parrish says the fire also disrupted state email and computer networks for other tenants at the public safety complex, including the corrections, revenue and insurance departments, along with the state health insurance office.
