Cape Girardeau city information systems inaccessible, cause unclear

Members of the City of Cape Girardeau’s information technology division are investigating a malfunction in the city’s information systems that has rendered the city’s online systems inaccessible since early this week.

Deputy city manager Molly Mehner said it is still unclear exactly what caused the outage or when the systems will be restored to functionality, but city personnel hope to have some services restored by the end of the week.

According to the city’s website — www.cityofcapegirardeau.org — a “network incident” has affected “the City’s email and several other systems,” but there is “no information to indicate that any customer or employee information has been accessed or taken without authorization.”

In lieu of the disabled systems, city staff are only accepting cash and check payments for utilities and a copy of the bill must be provided with the payment.

Every department of the city government has been impacted by the disabled systems in one way or another, Mehner said.

“We can’t access our files on the network, so every department has some impact. Obviously none of us have emails right now, so if people are sending us things we are not getting them,” Mehner said.

According to the deputy city manager, it has not been determined whether messages sent during the outages are queued to deliver upon the system’s repair or whether they will be lost.

In the meantime, a list of direct phone numbers and operable email addresses for select city departments can be found on the city’s website.

Emergency services such as 911 are still available, Mehner said, and emergency personnel are still able to respond to calls and take reports.

Court sessions for today have been canceled because of the outage, and any affected parties will receive additional information by mail, according to the city’s website.

As the city information technicians work to bring the system back online, Mehner advised residents to check the city’s website for updates.

“If people need to get us stuff right away, send it to those addresses on the website. We just ask for everybody’s patience while we get this sorted out.”