West Fargo Animal Hospital grapples with Internet, computer issues after power outage – InForum

WEST FARGO — The West Fargo Animal Hospital alerted clients via a Facebook post Monday morning that it was working to fix a major technical problem with its internet server, a problem that was apparently related to a power outage in West Fargo on Sunday evening.

“Our clinic server was destroyed in the West Fargo power outage last night. Unfortunately, almost everything in our clinic — practice management software, X-rays, diagnostics, invoicing, etc., runs on this server,” according to the Facebook post.

“We currently have no way to see what appointments are coming in at what times, or patients histories. We are working diligently to resolve the problem, but it may take 24-48 hrs. Please bear with us as we navigate this unprecedented event,” the post added.

Abby Tweten, a spokesperson for the animal hospital who identified herself as a patient services representative, said when workers arrived Monday morning they discovered they had no Internet connection due to a “catastrophic” problem with the facility’s server, which they believe was caused by a power outage in West Fargo the night before.

Tweten said despite the damage caused to the server, the hospital was making due with what it had, but things were “defintely a little bit slower than normal.” She added that as of about 3:30 p.m. Monday clients were continuing to show up for appointments and for the most part things were “normal, at the moment.”

Tony Grindberg, principal manager for Xcel Energy in North Dakota, said about 3,601 customers lost power at 5:23 p.m. Sunday and the outage lasted until 6:34 p.m.

He said the problem was caused by a tree falling on a feeder line.

It was not clear how many customers affected by the outage were businesses, said Grindberg. No information was avaliable on how many customers might have experienced any ongoing problems after their power was restored.