Our local Chamber of Commerce [near Seattle, Washington] had a Y2K Awareness meeting today [7/9/98] with rep's from the phone company and the electric company, and a Y2K consultant (who did a great job, btw). Hold on to your hats as you read what I'm going to type...

The power company representative stated that Bonneville Dam supplies power to the greater part of the Northwest United States [and some of California]. They recently tested their SCADA systems and they failed. They are just now beginning to ASSESS their 300 substations.

Then he ended with the comforting statement that there would be no power disruptions in the year 2000, but that if anyone wanted to buy a generator anyway, the power company would be happy to sell them one.

In other words, what this man said was that Bonneville Dam was not compliant, that the 300 substations were not compliant, that they were just beginning the assessment process (1% of the total Y2K experience) and that there would be no power disruptions in the Northwest.

The Y2K consultant at the meeting just about choked. The meeting had to be concluded before the consultant could comment.

The phone company rep, a pleasant, well spoken and kind woman who was the head of Y2K for CenturyTel which covers 21 states, said that they were in the assessment stage, that they could not guarantee phone service in the year 2000 but were confident that it would be ready.

Uh huh.

Folks, this is first hand, from my ears to my keyboard to this forum.

The people in the room had no clue what the power rep said or what it meant. They had no idea what the phone lady said or what she meant. They all shook each others hands, went back to their businesses and got on with their day.

Please make plans to have some water, some food, some heat, and someone you care about near you when the ball starts to fall in Times Square. It may be the last pleasant thing you see for awhile.

And, keep looking up! :)

http://www.lifetel.com/y2k2000.htm

-- Pastor Chris (chrisbr@ptinet.net), July 10, 1998

Answers

Considering the amount of research I have done and the profession I am in, I would say "This sounds about right to me."

I am the senior programmer/system analyst for a company and I had to give notice 1 year ago before the company I work for would allow me the honor of saving their butts. Now their tune has changed. They will never admit it but they are very happy($$$$$) I forced them into fixing the problem. With that 1 year jump on the issue, we will be compliant. I know that may not be enough, but I stuck it out and I am prepared. Not only am I prepared in the business sense but also in the "surviver" sense.

Your take one the audience reaction is nothing new. I see it all the time.

j

-- j (yada@yada.com), July 10, 1998.

It does seem to me that programmers have been warning of this problem for a long time. The problem has been getting people to listen. Even now you know it's hard to get people to listen. I wonder sometimes why Ed couldn't have written his book a little earlier. Yada , it sounds like you did your company a big favor.

-- Amy Leone (aleone@amp.com), July 10, 1998.

Sure, Lets all blame Ed now! Hey Ed! Why didn't you write that book sooner? Maybe people would have listened! :)

-- Annie (anniegaff@mailexcite.com), July 10, 1998.

I guess getting people to believe in this is right up there with getting people to believe in radon. "Hey, there's this gas called radon in your basement and if you breathe it you'll get lung cancer but I can install some equipment for $2000 that will take care of that for you".

-- Amy Leone (aleone@amp.com), July 10, 1998.

Since I think Y2K awareness is a "Good Thing", I would hope that the radon analogy is "still-born". Although radon is potentially a threat (I spent hundreds, BTW, putting a fan under my foundation to eliminate it), the media these days is indicating that the "radon scare" was excessive.

-- Anon (Anon@anon.com), July 10, 1998.

Chris, your posting is astonishing. In my state, I am working on a policy paper on y2k for a gubernatorial candiate who is likely to win and our incoming Speaker of the House. But I have a sense of hopelessness because even if our candidate raises the right questions during the campaign and even if our Speaker of the House grills the right people in State House committee hearings, AND, even if the responses are totally alarming, people still won't get it!

When I first told my Pastor about Y2K, he thought for a minute and sagely replied, "our idol has fallen on us." No comment needed.

-- Leonardo (Leonarcc@ix.netcom.com), July 10, 1998.

Yada....

Now that you saved your company's butt, now's a good time to quit them and go work on someone else's Y2K problem. I bet you will make more money, and any company would want you because you are an asset! Besides, you could probably use the extra money to find a bug out before the doo doo hits the fan.

Pastor Chris:

These electrical utilities do not want to get caught up in telling anyone that they are not ready, will not be ready, don't expect to be ready, but you better be ready! Here in California we have been deregulated. A major energy company thought they were going to come in here and pull at least 50% of PG&E's customers. Well, they discovered that it would cost too much money in advertising, and they found that there were too many loyal PG&E customers, and rumor is that when the lights go out, and the gas is turned off, they didn't want to be the new guy on the block offering deals that they cannot come through on. Also, too much in lost revenue! Haven't even heard any more commercials on the radio advertising for people to switch to their company because they use only "green power." HMMMMMM! I guess that's power that doesn't pollute the air!

-- Barb-Douglas (bardou@yahoo.com), July 10, 1998.

I work in the IT industry as an analyst/designer and project manager. I recently left a contract for the third largest electric cooperative in the United States - it covers a huge part of the state of Texas. In February of this year - the head of IT for this entire utility came to me and asked "what's this Y2K thing?" -- I am fairly certain that the application (their billing system) is compliant because of the Oracle tools they used. But I can't be sure because the project was in chaos before I came on board - the lead architect was hiding his code, etc. inadequate testing for any kind of compliance was done...

We rolled the app out -- but I couldn't guarantee its compliance - just knowing how the system was developed.

My point is this. This electricity co-op doesn't have a clue. They are sitting somewhere in the 50's in terms of management awareness and style...they think because their billing system is in Oracle - that that is all they have to worry about. They haven't given a thought to the other software systems that they have developed to handle their business over the years in Userbase or other such languages.

This gentleman's post doesn't surprise me at all. (By the way, I have purchased several acres of remote land and developing it. I do NOT plan on being in this area on 1/1/00...)

-- Chana Campos (chana@campos.org), July 12, 1998.