Company Press Release SOURCE: Washington Gas Washington Gas Participates in Region's Largest Y2K Drill WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- Washington Gas (NYSE: WGL - news) participated in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan region's largest Y2K exercise today which was organized by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) to test the Year 2000 emergency plans and communications of local governments, fire and rescue services, police, utilities, transit and transportation systems. The exercise was intended to have participants work together to solve unforeseen problems, and to share information and resources.

The test scenarios involving Washington Gas included a simulated evacuation of Washington Gas's Operations Center in Springfield due to a HAZMAT spill, damage to a gas supplier's line and the impact on natural gas customers due to interruptions of electrical service. As part of the simulation, Washington Gas activated its emergency command centers and sent personnel to the COG Command Center and regional Emergency Operation Centers. The company also simulated activation of emergency communications procedures and deployment of technical crews to 150 locations throughout the service territory in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

Joseph Schepis, President and Chief Operating Officer, said ``The drill gave Washington Gas an opportunity to test further our contingency and business continuity plans for the Year 2000 and demonstrate our ability to respond to any emergency situation. We're very pleased with the outcome of the drill and feel it was a worthwhile exercise.''

The other participants included the Emergency Operation Centers for the District of Columbia and Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Montgomery, Prince George's, Prince William, and Loudoun Counties; Pepco, Virginia Power, Bell Atlantic, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, the D.C. Water & Sewer Authority, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., Washington Gas provides natural gas and other consumer services to over 850,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers throughout metropolitan Washington, D.C., and the surrounding region. For more information about Washington Gas, its subsidiaries, history, products and services, please visit the Washington Gas Web site at http://www.washgas.com .

The statements contained in this press release regarding Washington Gas's Year 2000 program are ``readiness disclosure'' within the meaning of the Year 2000 Information and Readiness Disclosure Act of 1998.

SOURCE: Washington Gas

-- justme (justme@justme.net), September 02, 1999

Answers

As a million millennium revelers crush onto the Mall, a helicopter crashes into the Wilson Bridge, a prison riot breaks out in Frederick, Md., and an angry customer pumps a couple of bullets into a malfunctioning automated teller machine in Alexandria.

Happy New Year!

More like April Fool's. They were all fake, worst-case scenarios dreamed up by consultants and thrown at hundreds of local government officials yesterday during a drill designed to test the Washington area's readiness for any calamity that could accompany the arrival of the year 2000, when computer failures--or merely the public's perception of them--could create an unusually tense New Year's.

"This exercise was not designed to ensure success, but to push people to the breaking point," said Michael Rogers, executive director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, which sponsored the daylong drill. Area utility companies and water and sewer authorities also participated in the simulations, which sought to test not only the responsiveness of cities and counties but also the cooperation among local jurisdictions in solving emergencies.

By day's end, Rogers and other officials declared their agencies ready for the new millennium but acknowledged the need to continue planning and training for big emergencies--regardless of whether they are related to so-called Y2K problems. Such problems could occur in older computer systems that use only two digits to identify the year and assume that the new year will be 1900 instead of 2000.

Many of the incidents, accidents and false alarms cooked up for yesterday's drill had no direct link to computer glitches but were designed to reflect the type of things that could make an already chaotic evening more so. Some were caused by the freezing temperatures and impending snowstorm that was conjured up for the simulation. Bad weather caused pipes to burst and electricity to be cut.

Computer goblins were suspected in disruptions of some kidney dialysis machines. Also, some poor residents were calling to complain that their food-stamp debit cards weren't working, and D.C. workers got antsy when their paychecks didn't show up in their direct-deposit accounts.

In Fairfax, officials used the games to learn how to reassure the public that the county is ready for Jan. 1 and to caution residents that the biggest problems might arise from alarmist reports and conjecture that could trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Dire perceptions might fuel unfounded worries, warned Fairfax County Executive Robert J. O'Neill Jr., who was concerned about "the possibility in something like this that events could be taken out of context on New Year's Eve."

"If there are momentary power outages or . . . Metro has difficulty running sometime around midnight, that could be very well be due to the predictably high use of power around that time and overtaxed utilities, nothing more," O'Neill said. "The key is not to think automatically, 'Y2K.' A lot of what we're doing today relates to how people might react in panic to something they've heard might be happening somewhere else."

The simulated game began at 9 yesterday morning, with local command posts across the region suddenly becoming 9 p.m. on New's Year Eve. A mock news report said trouble had broken out in Europe, where it already was the start of the new millennium: Heavy withdrawals of Euro currency had caused bank shutdowns.

Televised reports of the Euro crisis and other Y2K problems in turn frightened many Americans, some of whom could not resist rushing to their own banks and stampeding stores in an attempt to hoard supplies. There were, according to the scenario, isolated incidents of violence in Miami, where people were trying to stockpile food, water and medicine.

Meanwhile, in Montgomery County, a simulated uproar also raged in the basement of the County Council building, where reports were received from the Council of Governments office in Washington.

About 50 county officials and representatives of utilities and private aide groups sat at tables crowded with laptop computers, telephones and walkie-talkies as county fire administrator Gordon A. Aoyagi presided with a microphone.

A prison riot had broken out in Frederick. There was a report that the county's water system might be poisoned. A suspected bomb had been found in Carderock. Chlorine gas was leaking in White Oak. Phones went down. Some power went out. And raw sewage was flooding a street.

"It's exercising both the computer systems and our internal management systems," chief administrative officer Bruce Romer said as Aoyagi continued his litany of dreadful simulated news.

"So far," Romer said, "everything that's been thrown at us we've been able to deal with, without degrading services."

In the District, emergency management director Peter G. LaPorte and Kerry Payne, his deputy, stalked around the war room on the top floor of the Reeves Municipal Center.

LaPorte announced that the D.C. mayor had asked the president to declare a state of emergency in the District and that he was awaiting news on the request.

Amid the chaos, Donald Robinson calmly took reports of trapped Metro trains, malfunctioning traffic signals and flickering lights at the White House.

Robinson has worked for the city's emergency management office for 18 years. He was in the war room that snowy January day in 1982 when an Air Florida passenger jet struck the 14th Street bridge and plunged into the Potomac River, killing 78 passengers and three motorists. A short time later, a Metro train derailed downtown, killing three passengers.

He said yesterday's drill was "very much like it was that day."

Robinson was serious but pleasant as he took calls and passed information to various agencies.

He was confident the city will be able to handle any Y2K crisis.

"Sure," he said with a firm, friendly nod. "If we talk, we'll get the problem solved. . . . We just have to make sure we communicate."

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-- Bob (bob@bob.bob), September 02, 1999.

Test is manure, best I can tell.

According to WTOP, AM 1500 (the main AM left-leaning NEWS station in Dee Cee), the regional test is what they call a "table-top" test, where no computers are tested. They just simulate some simultaneous failures to see how people will respond.

Big deal.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@Anonymous99.xxx), September 02, 1999.

Anonymous99,

Thanks for the post the other day on gilts, sorry to see not many responded to it. Don't know why!? seemed incredibly relevant as far as factual occurances happening in advance of rollover.

As far as Washington Gas----I think their brochure they sent out to their customers a couple months ago says it all.

"The biggest challenge we have faced in our 150 year history"

Was this just Bravo Sierra or maybe they were just trying to instill confidence in their account base. (tongue in cheek)

And as far as emergency tests in Wash D.C.--

I was living here in Jan. 1983 or 82 when it was snowing, a plane crashed into the potomac and there was a subway wreck. It was two real incidences and it was a joke.

-- David Butts (dciinc@aol.com), September 02, 1999.