DNR's new reservation system crashes on launch

It will be next week before the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources knows when a new online and phone reservation system will be back in service.

The department took the system offline in late December to replace it with a more user-friendly program. The DNR tried to launch the program Thursday day but the system quickly overloaded and crashed, said spokeswoman Pat Arndt.

Sixty reservations were made before the system seized up. The integrated phone system also went down.

"I think that people got frustrated when they were not able to go online or get through with the phone system, but I think people also understand that sometimes these things just happen with technology," Arndt said. "And I hope that as long as they know that we're working very hard to fix it, that they will be patient with us."

Arndt said the state didn't pay for the new system, built by New York-based US eDirect. The company makes money from fees paid by people who make reservations.

"We've isolated the problem now and we took the system down until we could get it fixed, and they're going to be fixing it and testing it over the weekend," Arndt said. "Sometime next week we'll know a little bit more about when we can get it back up and running."

Arndt says people should check the DNR's updates on Twitter or Facebook for information when the program is back up.