Nevada DMV, other agency sites down due to outage

All state of Nevada websites were inaccessible all day Friday as work continued into the night to repair the outage.

A physical failure with a fiber connection caused the outage, according to the Nevada Department of Administration.

“State websites remain unavailable this morning due to a physical failure with fiber connection. Repair work is ongoing,” the department said Friday morning.

“This is a widespread outage to the state’s internet in the north that has caused most state websites and services to be down, as well as problems with some phone systems and email coming into and going outside the state system,” Department of Administration spokesperson Stephanie Klapstein said later Friday.

“The source of the outage is damage sustained by the fiber connection due to fire. The provider is working right now to replace the damaged fiber with new fiber, and they have indicated that repair may be complete later this afternoon, though we do not yet have a firm estimated time,” she added

Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office reported that online state services were unavailable because of the outage.

“The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles offices are closed statewide due to this issue and the agency has begun to notify those with appointments,” a release for Sisolak’s office said. “Within all state office buildings in Northern Nevada, internet and email are not available. Desk phones in some agencies are operational. Internet and email in Southern Nevada and Elko are still working.”

DMV spokesperson James DeHaven said around 900 customers per day are served at each of the agency’s offices in Las Vegas. “It’s worth noting that our self-service kiosks and smog check stations are also down, as both are tied into our IT network,” he said.

The outages began at approximately 5:30 p.m. Thursday, the release said. Because of safety concerns and proximity to an active rail line, restoration work was initially delayed.

“Extensive efforts to repair the fiber will continue throughout the evening and into the night,” the Department of Administration said in a tweet around 6 p.m. “Until the fiber is repaired and tested, state websites and online services will remain unavailable.”

The DMV said late Friday that its offices would be closed on Saturday due to the outage. Customers who had an appointment can come to DMV offices on a walk in basis next week, according to a press release.

Contact Tony Garcia at tgarcia@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307. Follow @TonyGLVNews on Twitter. Contact Taylor R. Avery at TAvery@reviewjournal.com. Follow @travery98 on Twitter.

Review-Journal staff writer David Wilson contributed to this report.