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City Hall adapting to life without computers after New Orleans cyberattack

The forensic investigation into who is responsible for the ransomware attack is ongoing.

NEW ORLEANS — The New Orleans City Council chamber sat vacant on Monday.

A meeting of the city civil service board was canceled because of Friday's cyber attack.

"Obviously, we've had IT working through the weekend," City Council President Helena Moreno said. "They've been working in our offices as well. We've got no computers, no way to send out emails, anything like that."

Moreno admits it's hard to gauge how soon city computers will be restored.

"When you have around 4,000 computers impacted and to bring just one computer back, apparently, it takes several hours to half-a-day," Moreno said. "Just think about that times 4,000."

City officials announced there are 50 National Guard, state and federal partners working with the city to restore the computer network.

Mayor LaToya Cantrell said the city's plan for recovery is working and that is a priority for her administration to see city government working.

She also stated that she instructed city employees to "continue to work, manually if necessary."

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But, the cyber attack closed New Orleans Traffic and Municipal Court on Monday.

Josh Butler came to court to pay a traffic ticket.

"It's inconveniencing me," Butler said. "It is what it is. I'll come back when it's time to pay. It's just inconveniencing, you know."

Attorney Christian Silva also had court business.

"It's better to be safe than sorry," Silva said. "If they need to shut it down and make sure that they clean everything up, then I all for it."

Chief Judge Paul Sens said it could be Thursday before the courthouse reopens.

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People who were supposed to be in court will be notified when their case is rescheduled.

"They'll all get notices in the end," Sens said. "There won't be attachments out for their arrest or anything like that."

The court was able to handle first appearances for a handful of people arrested on Municipal charges over the weekend.

"Those people had bonds set for them," Sens said. "If they had an attachment for their arrest, they weren't charged with that attachment. We will serve them to come back at another time."

Back at City Hall, Helena Moreno is preparing for a scaled-back public meeting on Thursday.

"We're going to have a very, very short meeting where we'll be taking some items that are on deadline, that we need to take action on," Moreno said. "By law, sometimes there are time restrictions on some items, so we're going to have to take those."

City officials say all of the data impacted by the cyber attack can be recovered.
But, they did not give a timetable for when the computer system will be back to full strength.

The forensic investigation into who is responsible for the ransomware attack is ongoing.

NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said his department's "field services" have not been impacted by the attack.

But, he revealed the NOPD cannot respond to records requests while the computers are down.

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