SOUTH BAY — A massive Microsoft outage disrupted communications at South Bay city halls Thursday, leaving municipal employees struggling with technical problems as businesses and organizations nationwide reported losing access to email and other essential workplace services.
Rancho Palos Verdes, Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach reported disruptions during the Nov. 12 outage, while Santa Monica employees experienced similar difficulties. Although city representatives said residents were largely unaffected, the problems exposed how heavily local governments depend on Microsoft's technology for everyday operations.
Rancho Palos Verdes issued a public alert at noon confirming its email system had been affected by the global outage.
"The City of Rancho Palos Verdes' email system is impacted by the ongoing global Microsoft outage," officials announced.
Residents were advised to contact departments by telephone or visit City Hall during normal business hours. An online staff directory provides alternative contact information.
In Redondo Beach, Gia, a city program coordinator, told Patch that municipal systems had been affected and the IT department had instructed employees to wait for further guidance. Gia said she did not know whether public services had been disrupted, although she believed they remained operational.
Manhattan Beach employees were experiencing similar difficulties, according to Tanya, a member of the city's Public Works Department. She confirmed that City Hall staff were affected but said residents were not.
The disruption also reached Santa Monica, where Deli, a city 311 representative, confirmed that municipal employees were experiencing technical problems but said public services had not been interrupted.
The municipal disruptions coincided with widespread failures involving Microsoft Outlook, Teams, Copilot and other Microsoft 365 services. According to Reuters, Downdetector recorded more than 130,000 reports of Outlook problems at approximately 10:27 a.m. Pacific time Thursday, alongside more than 46,000 Microsoft 365 reports and roughly 3,000 involving Teams.
Those figures represent user-submitted reports, not confirmed numbers of affected customers. The Associated Press reported that users encountered problems accessing inboxes, sending and receiving emails and connecting to other Microsoft applications.
Microsoft acknowledged widespread connectivity problems involving Exchange Online, the cloud-based infrastructure supporting Outlook email services.
The company said servers had unexpectedly become unavailable after failing automated health checks, placing additional strain on remaining infrastructure. Engineers were restarting affected servers, redistributing traffic and testing changes intended to restore service.
The underlying cause remained under investigation, with no definitive timetable announced for full restoration.
Despite the disruption, Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica representatives said public services remained unaffected. Redondo Beach had not confirmed whether resident-facing operations were interrupted.
Rancho Palos Verdes urged residents to use telephone or in-person assistance rather than email until service was restored. The outage highlighted the vulnerability of routine government communications when widely used cloud-based systems experience technical failures.
Residents and businesses can monitor Microsoft's service status page for updates.
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