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FINN BULLERS and DAVID HAYES:
A false sense of security about Y2K appears to be emerging

Related Sites:
 < i>The Star's series: Countdown to Y2k
 

By DAVID HAYES and FINN BULLERS - Columnist
Date: 07/09/99 22:15

 Y2K followers are concerned that the country is being lulled into a false sense of security because there haven't been any high-profile, high-impact Millennium Bug failures.

But the false sense of security theme would be a tough sell if you live in New Berlin, Wis., are a passenger with Air France, a business owner in Ohio or a widow in Japan.

In New Berlin, residents were left without water this week after a new computer system designed to sidestep Y2K problems malfunctioned. Two main water tanks drained when computers failed to activate pumps to fill them. Residents had to ration their water.

On the same day that the Air Transport Association of America said 95 percent of its work was done, Air France stranded 4,000 pieces of luggage at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport. The culprit? An unsuccessful attempt to upgrade the airport's baggage computer system to squash the bug. Some travelers were luggage-less for two days.

In Ohio, a new $7 million computer system in the secretary of state's business office has so many bugs it will never run smoothly, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports. New corporate filings that once took two weeks now take two months.

And in Tokyo, stress from dealing with Y2K drove a 40-year-old man to commit suicide, his wife said. The man routinely put in 15-hour days at the Osaka steel sales company, where he was in charge of computer software, she said in a court filing.

The man was ordered to ensure that more than 600 pieces of software would be bug-free. The work did not go well, and he would come home late and tell his wife "I want to die," the Kyodo news agency reported. He jumped to his death from their apartment building in February 1998. She is seeking compensation.

Y2K warnings

 By the end of August, the new computer or bundle of software you purchase at Office Depot will come with a warning: Equipment may not be Y2K-compliant.

Frustrated when store clerks would not tell him whether their products were Year 2000-ready, Tom Johnson, a Concord, Calif., swim coach, filed suit last January against Office Depot of Delray Beach, Fla., and six other retailers.

The suit alleged Circuit City, Fry's Electronics, The Good Guys, CompUSA, Staples, OfficeMax and Office Depot violated California's Unfair Competition Law by not reporting whether merchandise would work after Dec. 31.

"Many consumers believe that the Y2K problem will only affect older products and mainframe computers or large corporate networks," said Johnson's lawyer, Rich Ergo. "But many products sold today are not compliant."

The suit is the first to single out retailers. Up to now, most lawsuits have gone after big software manufacturers for allegedly selling bug- ridden merchandise. Judges have rejected most of those claims because no consumer has been damaged.

Court-required settlement talks with the six other companies will begin Thursday.

Nuke plants safe

Computers that control radiation leaks at all 103 U.S. nuclear power plants, including Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corp. in Kansas, have been given a bug-free stamp of approval, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said this week.

But 35 of the country's nuclear plants still have work that must be done to fix computers that control power generation or do administrative work, according to July 1 reports filed by utility officials.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says none of those systems affect a plant's ability to shut down safely. But if they're not fixed by the end of September, the commission could force plant shutdowns.

Utilities powered by coal and natural gas will be scrutinized in a readiness report to the U.S. Energy Department on July 29.

Crisis centers surge

America's largest companies are falling behind on their Year 2000 timetables, according to one leading Y2K consulting firm. At the same time, they are more likely to organize Y2K crisis management centers than they were six months ago.

More than 70 percent of the country's major corporations had expected to have half of their fixes ready by last Jan. 1. But the current tracking poll issued by Cap Gemini America shows only 55 percent reached that goal.

With efforts going more slowly than expected, Cap Gemini now says 85 percent of the country's biggest firms plan to build crisis centers, more than double the 40 percent planning such facilities in December.

Backup plans?

Although nearly three-fourths of the nation's counties have adopted plans to address Y2K, a new survey by the National Association of Counties shows nearly 60 percent say they have no backup strategy if those plans go awry on Dec. 31.

Of the 500 counties surveyed, 368 had made Y2K plans. Those counties represent 37.2 million people, or 92 percent of the population represented by survey participants.

Some 58 percent of the counties surveyed by phone in May and June said they have not prepared a Y2K backup plan, and 4 percent said they're not sure they will. Nearly half said they were not planning a countywide Y2K test.

Johnson County is planning a drill Oct. 13. Shawnee County is planning one this month and Douglas County held a drill June 22.

Counties responding to the survey said they'll spend $225 million to bash the bug. Based on that figure, all counties in the country are estimated to spend $1.53 billion on Y2K fixes.

Tidbits

In a sign of things to come, First National Bank of Olathe is going public in customer billing inserts to say "we're ready for the new millennium." An independent audit confirms bank readiness tests, the insert states.< /li>

In July, 18 states, including Kansas and Missouri, will hold "Y2K Community Conversations" sponsored by the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion. To hold a session in your neighborhood, contact the council at 1-888- USA-4Y2K, or on the Web at www.y2k.gov

The Y2K watch column appears on Saturdays. To reach David Hayes, call (816) 234-4904 or send e-mail to dhayes@kcstar.com To reach Finn Bullers, call (816) 234-7705 or send e-mail to fbullers@kcstar.com

-- Brian (imager@home.com), July 13, 1999.

Bold off.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), July 13, 1999.

Think about it: The public isn't worried about Y2K because there is a lack of high profile failures. Yet, almost by definition, these failures are not expected to happen until five and a half months from now! The occasional ones that do occur (and with greater and greater frequency) seem to be either the result of Y2K testing or because a new system put in place because it is Y2K compliant ends up having problems.

The reality is that each one of these problems, regardless of the polly spins, COMPLETELY VERIFY that Y2K problems are real and deadly. The frequency of their occurence will absolutely go supernova come Jan 1.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), July 13, 1999.

As a resident of New Berlin, I'd be curious to know who/what/where you got information indicating that problem Y2K related.

New Berlin's water system was buggy long before Y2K hysteria started - if you search local newspaper archives you'll find this wasn't the first time residents had low water pressure over the holiday weekend. (That may not be the only buggy software in New Berlin - I've seen the wetland zoning behind my property mysteriously switch to residential and I had to argue with planning and zoning to get maps corrected to reflect the wetland - but that's another story) If updated software was in fact involved, I'll suggest it simply perpetuated an previously existing bug.

By the way, I not worried about the municipal system, I'm on private well... I just want truthful disclosure IF Y2K is the issue.

jh

-- john hebert (jt_hebert@hotmail.com), July 14, 1999.

John - don't know anything more than the initial quote in the article: < In New Berlin, residents were left without water this week after a new computer system designed to sidestep Y2K problems malfunctioned. Two main water tanks drained when computers failed to activate pumps to fill them. Residents had to ration their water. >>

____

Don't know if that helps you much in tracking the problem down locally.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 14, 1999.

Sir Robert,

Good to hear from you! (The volume of activity on this forum now forces me to give it only cursory glances and generally not participate.) Here's why I've raised the question:

The thread's title - New Berlin Wis. Water Facility failure during Y2K tests noted - simply is not supported by the story. All that is offered is that a new system designed to sidestep Y2K malfunctioned. How does one then conclude that Y2K tests were being conducted. I don't see anything there supporting the failure claim.

My original post should have read "if updated software was in fact being tested" (instead of if updated software was in fact involved) and in that respect wasn't as clear as it should have been. Since it was a long holiday weekend I'm skeptical that anything was going on at city hall until the emergency arose.

Having lived in New Berlin for 10 years, I can assure you the disappearing water trick over the holiday weekend has in fact happened before. Furthermore 20+ years software experience tells me that it is not unreasonable to consider that an existing bug was ported to 'new' system.

It interesting to note that a neighboring community with the same system did not report the problems that New Berlin experienced. Of course that explains absolutely nothing until the variables are determined (and I suspect no one has the time or inclination to evaluate). Those variables could range anywhere from to confirmation that New Berlin was testing and the neighboring community wasn't or that the neighboring community just didn't use as much water and had sufficient reserves so the 'problem' didn't cause problems or that the system can't handle New Berlins larger and more complex system, or.....

I copied my post, along with a request for additional information, to the reporters at the Star - I'll let you know if they provide any additional info.

Below I've included info on the sewerage spill out in california - I don't know if it was posted on the forum since as I noted, I haven't been following closely of late. However, if you hadn't seen it, I'm sure you'll appreciate it - it is, as Paul Harvey might say, the rest of the story.

Good Luck jh

From Jon Huntress Year 2000 Newsletter Friday, July 9, 1999

Remember last newsletter when I wrote about the four million gallon sewage spill in California? We listed articles about the spill in our Bug Bytes section of our site. One of the people I met at the conference was Larry Schellhase who is on the Y2K team for the Department of Public Works for Playa Del Rey, California. He knew all about the spill and took me to task for calling it a year 2000 related problem. Even though it happened during a Y2K test, it actually had nothing to do with Y2K, he explained to me. Then he gave me the complete report on the spill. Technically he is correct in that there was no Y2K issue that caused the problem. This is what happened when the bypass gate closed and dumped the sewage.

For the test, they opened the bypass gate and closed the gate to the sewage plant, then powered everything down and went on generator power. When this happened, the bypass gate closed, even though the command had been sent to keep it open. The reason it closed was that the UPS (Uninteruptible Power Supply) for that computer was down for maintenance. This was not considered to be a problem because if the computer goes off, it will simply reboot when the power comes back on. The reason the gate closed was that the computer had been programmed to close the gate as the first step of the reboot. This was a serious mistake in the program. With sewage, you want the gates to fail open. Programming them to fail shut is like programming prison cell doors to fail open. This command was written by some forgotten programmer following some sort of reasoning process in the early 1980s.

Since this incident happened during a Y2K test and part of the problem was in the software, I am still calling it a Bug Byte and I'm glad it was well publicized because it shows just how important it is to test these systems. I expect companies all over the world will find similar problems that aren't really Y2K related, but are still an accident waiting to happen.

-- john hebert (jt_hebert@hotmail.com), July 15, 1999.

Excellent point, and much thanks for the added info about the CA sewage spill.

___

The two show several vital points, that will now doubt be promptly ignored by anyone who doesn't "want" to get it, and to those who are trying to train "newbies" about how "not" to get it.

One, our illustrious civil servants are now absolutely afraid of using the term y2k in any way associated with any infrastructure or computer-related failure. The editor of the Omaha World Herald has even justified editing his paper's original story about state patrol data being corrupted to remove the original "y2k" reference by saying it wasn't in his newspaper "style sheet." Here, in the CA sewage spill, the administrator was trying very hard to show that the spill wasn't y2k-related. (It just would have happened any time the same situation was going to happen (such as a power supply change caused by a electrical power failure, and was discovered due to y2k-testing of alternate power supplies, etc.)

I concur with your judgement that this is a "bug" story, and must be indentified that way.

___

What so few people realize is that the PROCESS is the only critical issue - whether that is a satellite alignment missed because of programming error(s) (NASA), or a phone system down in the business district because the basement flooded (Chicago), or a sewage spill (Atlanta, LA, etc.) or a water pressure loss (as in this case) - if the service is lost during the year 2000 rollover period, regardless of specific reason for the immediate loss, it has an impact that make it a y2k-related failure.

For example, several people apparently claim that the FAA radar systems are not having to be replaced because they are not "y2k-compliant" - they are having to be replaced because they are simply failing from old age and mechaincal/electrical failures.

I agree - but maintain that since these MUST be replaced at this time, and because this replacement affect the y2k compliance of the agency itself (the basic question of "canyou continue to operate through the entire part of next year?" the issue becomes critical.

It would not matter, for example, if some combination of manual systems and hand-imprinted credit cards could keep Home Depot in business for two days or two weeks next year. If they (as a company) fail in two months because they cannot track inventory nor ship new material to their stores, they (as a process) have failed due to y2k-induced failures.

If the water pumps and treatment center fails in a city, but the tanks maintained pressure because demand was low for two days, the supply system still failed. If it was not correctly and permanantly fixed after the first failure, it will still fail the next time (when the loss is NOT due a test that can be stopped!).

Too many pollies are trying to count embedded chips or programs that "look ahead" and predict everything will be okay. I'm seeing too many processes ("good water coming out of the faucet") that are threatened, but are not being tested, not being remediated, not being surveyed, to be optimistic.

-- Robert A Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), July 15, 1999.

Slammer, Sir Robert -

Here's a follow up on from the local - sorry for the delay. Ameritech's repair service got me really backlogged leaving me with unreliable service for only six weeks before they stopped saying it was my problem and fixed their problem... anyway here's the followup (the star reporters never acknowledged my E-mail inquiries - can only presume they are fear mongers more interested in misleading headlines than the facts):

From the July 15, 1999 issue of the "New Berlin Citizen" here's part of the article from an interview with Water Utility Director Larry Wilms:

As of July 8, the possible causes of the computer problem had been narroewd down. A possible data overload or similar malfucntion may have caused on of the computer's graphic screens to lock up, Wilms said.

The (computer) system locking up did not register the need to put additional pumping equipment on line to provide additional pressure, he said.

This function is normally automatic, with the computer increasing water pressure by tappine into underground storage resevoirs during the hours of heavier use during the day. Because of the lock-up, Water Utility staff had to manually turn otn the additional pumps after the problem was discovered. Staff also went to work monitoring the system until it was back running normally, Wilms said.

A similar incident occured about 5 years ago on Memorial Day, after the computer's alarm sounded at the Utility Departement. However, because of the holiday weekend, no one was in the office to hear or respond to the alarm........

-----

Not nearly as sensational as the Star headline, but I don't New Berlin to get credit for a Y2K failure when none is due...

Good Luck jh

-- john hebert (jt_hebert@hotmail.com), August 04, 1999.