The head of statistics explained that no one in the department could send email more than about 520 miles. Some emails sent to people within that distance still failed, but all emails going further than 520 miles definitely failed. This had apparently been going on for a few days, but they didn’t report it sooner because they were still gathering enough data to establish the exact distance. One of their geostatisticians was apparently making a very nice map of where email could and could not be sent to.
