The impact of the massive Microsoft outage that began Nov. 12 was felt in municipalities across northern Ontario. On Thursday afternoon, users across the globe reported problems accessing Microsoft 365, including Outlook and Teams. The tech giant apologized for the multi-day outage and said several servers had shut down unexpectedly, resulting in a strain on the remaining infrastructure. In Temiskaming Shores, the outage affected “the majority of our employees and several critical communication systems that support municipal operations and public services,” Bradley Hearn, the municipality’s IT leader, said in an email to CTV News. ‘Significant impact’ “The Microsoft 365 outage had a significant impact on the City of Temiskaming Shores.” Hearn said one of the more concerning impacts was the disruption to the emergency services notification systems and automated communication workflows. “These systems help us quickly distribute important information to emergency service partners, including fire, EMS, and police, as well as local school bus and transportation companies,” he said. Hearn also said the outage disrupted attempts by residents to contact city hall, make customer service inquiries, get financial notifications and other municipal communications. The Temiskaming Shores IT department worked to keep employees informed and helped departments find other ways to communicate. “Ultimately, this situation highlights just how interconnected municipal operations have become with cloud-based technology,” Hearn said. “It also reinforces the importance of having alternative communication methods and business continuity procedures, particularly when those systems support time-sensitive public safety notifications.” Just email in Sudbury In Greater Sudbury, the impact was “only the city’s email service,” spokesperson Sacha Novack said in an email. “No public-facing websites, portals or other external systems were impacted. … municipal operations continued during the outage with minimal disruption.” A spokesperson for the Greater Sudbury Airport said there was no impact on flights. “On the administrative side, we shared in the Microsoft Outlook outage resulting in the temporary loss of access to email, but this did not have any impact on our flights, which continued to operate as normal,” Chris Pollesel said in an email. And there were no issues for Greater Sudbury Police Service. “It did not impact police operations. We experienced the same issues as everyone who relies on Microsoft Outlook for emails,” said police spokesperson Kaitlyn Dunn. CTV also reached out to Health Sciences North, the largest hospital in northeastern Ontario, to determine how the Microsoft outage impacted operations or services. We did not hear back by our deadline. Microsoft confirmed there was no indication the outage was the result of malicious cyber activity.
