I just posted on an earlier thread entitled "Rep. Grindley letter Challenged" the response I received from Rep. Grindley tonight. I then decided also to announce it on a new thread, since quite a few people expressed interest in this matter in even earlier threads and, with so many threads already started since, some people might have missed tonight's post.

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), July 12, 1999

Answers

Rep. Grindley confirmed the accurracy of the email concerning a three week power outage.

I contacted Rep. Grindley on Thursday, July 8, 1999 and posted the following to the original thread.

John Davis ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Below is an email I sent to Rep. Grindley this morning concerning a three week power outage. His reply preceeds my email John Davis

******************************

From: grindley@mindspring.com [mailto:grindley@mindspring.com] Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 11:50 AM To: John Davis Subject: Re: Confirmation Request

John,

Thanks for writing. The comments originated from a statement some time ago. Mike Hale, the C.I.O. of Georgia is responsible for Y2K remediation of the state. In actuallity, it was an aid of his who participated in a conference call with koskinen. It was a participant who suggested this, not John himself. The rest of the e- mail is correct. George

----- Original Message ----- From: John Davis To: Sent: Thursday, July 08, 1999 9:16 AM Subject: Confirmation Request

Rep. Grindley,

The email shown below has been posted on the Internet and has been attributed to you. Please confirm or deny its authenticity.

Also, is the reference to without power for 3 weeks correct?

Thank You, John Davis

From: george grindley[SMTP:grindley@mindspring.com] Sent: Saturday, March 06, 1999 11:47 PM To: kklewin@cycom.net Subject: Y2K is more serious than some might think

Dear Sylvia,

As the chairman of the state of Georgias Y2K taskforce for the State House, I have studied the possibilities and contingincies closely. I have had many conversations with National leaders such as Congressman Steven Horn, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, to name a few. There are facts that the Government doesnt want you to know. Steve Koskinen, the Nations Y2K czar, has instructed each state to prepare their contingency plans to include 18 cities without power for 3 weeks.

The Department of Defense is quite concerned about our power grid on that New Years Eve. The chances are good that there will be attempts made by outside sources to shut our grid down. This system was never encrypted, nor designed to keep experts out.

Sylvia, I must say here that God alone knows how bad or uneventful that evening will be, but we must way the risk of preparation with the risk of non preparation.

Please call me if I may be of assistance to you.

Yours in service,

George Grindley State Representative, District 35 Marietta, Georgia

-- John Davis (jdavis@gfd.com), July 08, 1999.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

-- (jdavis@gfd.com), July 12, 1999.

Don:

I hope I'm not interfering with something, but I couldn't find your previous thread and this one didn't make a lot of sense 'till I was at Scott Olmsteads site. I assume this is the letter you're talking about?

******

From: george grindley Sent: Sunday, March 07, 1999 12:47 AM To: kklewin@cycom.net Subject:Y2K is more serious than some might think

Dear Sylvia,

As the chairman of the state of Georgias' Y2K taskforce for the State House, I have studied the possibilities and contingencies closely. I have had many conversations with National leaders such as Congressman Steven Horn, Newt Gingrich, Bob Barr, to name a few. There are facts that the Government doesn't want you to know. Steve [should be John] Koskinen, the Nations Y2K czar, has instructed each state to prepare their contingency plans to include 18 cities without power for 3 weeks.

The Department of Defense is quite concerned about our power grid on that New Years Eve. The chances are good that there will be attempts made by outside sources to shut our grid down. This system was never encrypted, nor designed to keep experts out.

Sylvia, I must say here that God alone knows how bad or uneventful that evening will be, but we must way [sic] the risk of preparation with the risk of non preparation.

Please call me if I may be of assistance to you.

Yours in service,

George Grindley State Representative, District 35 Marietta, Georgia

Georgia House of Representatives, George Grindley, Jr. http://www2.state.ga.us/Legis/1997_98/house/gash035.htm

Sylvia Klewin wrote that in conversation with Rep. Grindley,

He stated that it is likely that the power grid will be pre-emptively broken-up and "isolated" to prevent collapse of large sections caused by cascading faults. By definition, this would cause many areas to lose all power, because they buy their power from other areas and do not generate their own. This is especially true of rural areas, which would therefore be in the most jeopardy. In addition, nuclear plants may need to be voluntarily shut down if they cannot prove conclusively that they are 100% remediated, due to the extra stringent regulations regarding nuclear power.

Grindley himself recommended extensive preparations, and told me that he is storing a three month supply of food and water for his family.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Another Opinion Compare the above with Dick Mills' last column for Westergaard on electric power and Y2K, where, although he is an optimist, says I decided to presume that 85% of the bugs get fixed, and to then analyze the implications and risks to electric supply based on that presumption. That led me to recommend that everyone should presume that a 10-year event will occur in 2000 and to be prepared for that. That translates to, expect a blackout no matter what the utilities say. (italics in original) ***

So there you have it. Advice from different ends of the spectrum to be prepared for a blackout, possibly lasting weeks. *****

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 12, 1999.

Sorry, apparently I was to quick on the trigger.

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), July 12, 1999.

Yes, Don, but Grindley HIMSELF is apparently an urban myth. He doesn't exist. He can't spell. He's got an axe to grind. He's .... well, you get the picture.

I'm not sure why this is so amazing to people: "the government is concerned about blackouts." They have been saying this for the past year. OF COURSE, they are more concerned than they let out in public. This is always the "way" of government or business. Whether that is malevolent or not (usually, it's "merely" paternalistic) always has to be decided by those who "find out" these things subsequently.

Whether it means anything about Y2K impacts: who knows? Don't be so sure they know more, one way or another, than some of us. Most of the people reporting to THEM don't know jack.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), July 12, 1999.

Grindley is "an urban myth"? He sure has a lot of people fooled in Georgia.

Thirty seconds on Alta Vista discloses that George H. Grindley, Jr. represents Georgia's 35th District as a Republican, his office phone is 404/656-0265, and his home address is [DELETE--Home Address--Per Request--Sysop], GA.

Try again. Try harder.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), July 12, 1999.

Tom -- I should have put on, no? Grindley, unlike most of our so-called public servants, had the guts and has continued to have the integrity to stand by what he said privately. Kudos to him.

I like to kid my wife that Y2K is an "urban myth" that I created in my immense power to deceive and entertain (just kidding, guys).

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), July 12, 1999.

Yes, the govt. advises people to plan for the WORST they EXPECT. The govt. plans, and advises other agencies to plan, for the worst they think is POSSIBLE.

I have sat in on some of these meetings myself! And since they were official Army meetings, I can't tell you about the content unless I want a vacation in Kansas, courtesy of a Federal judge. BUT, afterwards, when the security lid was off, I personally asked the engineer presenting the information what he EXPECTED in the way of power outages. Answer was the same every time - FEW TO NONE, any that happen will be short!

There is a big difference between the WORST POSSIBLE, WORST EXPECTED and the EXPECTED. Planning for the worst possible might be smart if you are living in an area that is near unhabitable in the winter. But planning for something WORSE than the WORST POSSIBLE doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), July 12, 1999.

Mr. Davis, I agree, and that is why in previous posts I have generally emphasized the word "possible." Of course, estimates vary on "worst possible" scenarios re the power grids anyway; Dick Mills, for instance, thinks that the worst possible scenario is a regional failure of 72 hours. What Rep. Grindley has heard, and what Washington, D.C. Y2K project manager Marion Hanley and TAVA's Cameron Daley are also suggesting, is that the "worst possible" case is regional outages lasting 2-3 weeks or so. Insofar as Y2K itself is concerned, I tend much more toward the Dick Mills' estimate (maybe I personally feel more comfortable because I have the hydroelectric plant at Elephant Butte Dam practically in my backyard). According to Rep. Grindley, the longer estimates of "worst case scenarios" (three weeks, maybe longer) are primarily based upon fears of cyberterrorism. I really don't know how anyone could begin to assess the odds of such cyberterrorist attacks, how widespread or damaging such attacks might be, or how long their effects might be; I have seen enough to be personally convinced that DoD and the NSA are taking these threats quite seriously, so at least some folks might want to consider the *possibility* of the three-week outage scenario. It must be added that when TAVA's Cameron Daley spoke of area outages possibly lasting as long as several weeks, he was apparently speaking just about Y2K (missed Y2K problems in embedded systems, etc.), without reference to cyberterrorism.

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), July 12, 1999.

I should add that I don't know just how Mr. Daley, a former exec with Boston Edison and now chief operating officer at TAVA, derived the scenario of *possibly* several weeks without power in some regions. Drew Parkhill of CBN News called Mr. Daley the other day to corroborate the June 30th "Bloomberg News" article; Mr. Daley stood by his quoted remarks and further said that, when called in to do extra remediation, TAVA had found cases of power companies having overlooked Y2K problems in embedded systems that would have indeed led to power outages. (One suspects overreliance upon type testing and vendor compliance statements as a factor here, too.) But Parkhill had time only to conduct a brief phone interview with Daley--there were apparently no details furnished. So I have no idea exactly what problems TAVA has found (reportedly, TAVA has worked with over 100 U.S. electric utilities) or why Mr. Daley thinks these problems might be serious and widespread enough to *possibly* lead to regional outages lasting as long as several weeks. Maybe he is factoring in here possible supply line problems during crunch time next Jan.-Feb.: a number of power companies might suddenly discover they need to replace certain embedded systems, etc., and then stress out their vendors by simultaneous demands. As I recollect, the possible supply line problem has previously been raised by Roleigh Martin, among others.

-- Don Florence (dflorence@zianet.com), July 12, 1999.

Don, I think they are making WAGs, (Wild Assed Guesses), and figuring they would prefer to err on the side of caution. Trouble is, when you have people chaining these WAGS together, they begin to lose all touch with reality. Its kind of like that silly calculator somebody put together on a website - if you chain enough guesses together you can prove the sun will start coming up in the North next week.

Moreover, it is very, very hard to keep up with the tremendous data flow about Y2K. A month in terms of Y2K is like YEARS in terms of any normal change - like the change from NTSC television to HDTV. We have spent ages wrangleing over the exact HDTV format. We ran through data exchange formats for windowing in about 4 months. And they were tested and worked. So I can understand people who are snowed under and just start guessing.

So you just have to keep yourself clear headed and not sweat it over the wild stuff. Stories about nuclear plants in great trouble sound good - but have little basis in fact. Stories about steam plants with embedded problems that will shut them down sound good too - till you ask if they have shutdowns whenever a monitor reboots. (they don't) Yarns about 100,000 JIT suppliers to a single company are great - but many of those suppliers supply the same part. Jillions of chips? - how many actual systems? - maybe 10 or 20 million different control systems, tops. Y2K owes more to urban legend than to reality.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), July 13, 1999.

Right.

Grindley, Hanley, and Daley are just guessing.

They are three of the most informed in the country.

Grindley has close contact with *Gingrich, Horn and Barr*.

But they're all just guessing.

Well, I'll go with their informed guess over yours.

-- Tuvok (Voyager@4thquadrant.com), July 13, 1999.