The DMV will not be able to process driver's licenses in its service centers today, as a computer server malfunction continues.
About two dozen state agencies were affected by a server failure late last week.
According to a statement yesterday from state Secretary of Technology Jim Duffey, the server failure was unprecedented, with the manufacturer reporting that the system and its technology haven't had a similar failure in more than a billion hours of run time.
The state's information agency, VITA, and technology provider, Northrop Grumman, worked over the weekend to try to resolve the issue, and the storage unit in question has been repaired, but restoration of data is still ongoing at three agencies--the DMV, the state tax department, and the Board of Elections.
Consumers have been most affected by the outage at the DMV, where drivers haven't been able to renew or get new licenses in person since last Thursday.
DMV spokeswoman Melanie Stokes said about 6,500 people a day get new licenses or ID cards, or renew existing ones, at DMV service centers. She said for about 5,000 Virginians, those licenses are now expired.
That means those people will have to bring extra documents to the DMV to prove their legal presence, a state law that DMV is powerless to waive.
State law requires proof of U.S. citizenship or legal immigration status for new licenses or to renew a license that has expired. Acceptable documents include a birth certificate, passport or other documents that show your full legal name and date of birth. The DMV requires the original documents, not copies.
The DMV is also warning customers to expect service centers to be even more crowded than usual once the computers are working again. As of yesterday afternoon, VITA did not know when the DMV system would be back online. The DMV is putting updates on its website, at dmvnow.com, and its phone line, 804/497-7100.
Some people can renew their licenses online or by telephone, and those services are still working, as are other DMV services. Stokes said last week that the server the DMV uses to store license photographs was affected by the outage, which is why the DMV cannot process licenses requiring a new photo.
Stokes said some customers were upset Thursday and Friday, when the computer failure was in its early stages.
Now, she said, DMV centers are quiet.
"It's like a ghost town almost," Stokes said. "People have gotten the message."
Chelyen Davis: 540/368-5028
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com
Virginia law requires proof of U.S. citizenship or legal immigration status for new licenses or to renew a license that has expired. For a list of a acceptable documents, visit dmv.virginia.gov/web doc/pdf/dmv141.pdf.