Microsoft Outlook outage disrupts work, classes across Savannah area

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTOC) - A worldwide Microsoft Outlook outage disrupted businesses, government operations and schoolwork across the Savannah area, with some users unable to access the service for up to 16 hours through Friday morning.

The effects extended beyond email for some people who rely on Microsoft services for daily work and classroom assignments.

“I mean it’s a total disruption to daily activities within an organization, from business transactions, emails get lost in this situation so data may be lost,” said Joel Gulick, founder and owner of Computer Solutions Inc.

The city of Savannah and the Savannah-Chatham County school system said they were working to recover data potentially lost during the outage. Memorial Hospital and the Chatham Emergency Management Agency use different systems and were not as affected.

Some students also reported trouble accessing assignments and group projects on Microsoft services.

“One of my classes we had a group assignment project and none of us could get on the doc to work on it so basically class ended because no one could do any work,” said Michael Reing, a Savannah College of Art and Design student.

Clearwave Fiber, an internet network company, also experienced an outage hours after the Outlook disruption, affecting many of its 15,000 customers around Savannah. Gmail was also unavailable for about an hour. Gulick suggested the Gmail disruption could have been related to the Outlook outage, though the cause of that interruption was not established in the reporting.

Outlook service has been restored in the area. Gulick said whether the outage raises concerns going forward depends on what caused it. Microsoft said there was no evidence of malicious intent.