> Senate staff were instructed to respond to the email, which outlined a potential threat for the drill, with their status and location on Capitol Hill or off campus. But the thousands of simultaneous reply-alls that ensued first clogged up inboxes before staff were unable to get into their inboxes altogether.

That's why we test! Imagine if that happened during an actual crisis. Give them a break - that's the point of testing, to discover these glitches.

Note that another negative outcome is that high value targets (e.g., Schumer and McConnell) are emailing every Senate employee with their location, not to mention the email chain also provides aggregated information on where crowds of targets can be found.

Also, email ain't so secure. A sophisticated enemy - and I'm pretty sure the US government actually has some of those - would love that information. Heck, you can find locations just by locating mail traffic.

> The Senate’s email system, run through Microsoft Outlook

It's 2023 and someone is still writing that?