Two day, two new glitches for Rhode Islands troubled new benefits system

PROVIDENCE- A long line formed outside the Department of Human Services Wednesday, the process inside slow, after the system shut down for a short time. However, Wednesday’s line was nothing compared to what some say they faced Tuesday waiting in line for hours.
 
"I came there was a really long line and I had to go home. I wasn’t able to see anyone because they were too busy," says customer Dasiel Rondeon.
 
DHS confirmed their website RIBridges was down for about an hour on Tuesday due to a network issue. However a spokesperson from the department says there are other factors contributing to the back up. She says more than 6,100 customers were sent paperwork for the new year that they need to have processed in order to keep getting benefits. Another 4,000 have to renew. Despite the reasons, customers are not happy about the wait.

"Very frustrating. No food in the house, no nothing, people diabetic, no nothing," adds another customer.

Spokespeople from DHS released this statement Wednesday evening:

"Yesterday, the system experienced a network connectivity issue, which prevented users from accessing the system for less than an hour before it was fully resolved. Further testing was performed yesterday to ensure it does not happen again. Early this morning, the system was down for about 20 minutes due to a separate issue with the servers that only affected the worker portal. Our state technical team has been working diligently with our vendor, Deloitte, to determine the full scope of the issue."

(c)WLNE-TV/ABC6 2017