I had reason to try to come up with 'early warning' signs of crisis level events on the 31st of Dec. as I have been volunteered to take my teaspoon and hold back the sea that evening at work. And didn't want to waste the gas, or be caugth two or three days from the house if driving turned out not to be an option for any reason.

It occured to me that the rollover actually begins at 7 AM, EST in Guam. Then advances westward until it arrives in the US at either Greenwich Mean (Zulu) time midnight (7 PM EST), or midnight EST. So I ought to be able to get some 'read' on the situation starting that Friday morning. HOWEVER, it then occured to me that this is exactly what a LOT of people will be doing that morning.

This has a couple of implications. 1 - If everybody in the village I live in is watching Friday morning, and what they are seeing instead of rollover celebrations is 'technical difficulties' or worse, an initial televised event followed by an 'off the air' situation, where it disappears in front of their very eyes, if that is allowed, I have to believe that EVEN John Q Public, Joe Sixpack, and Suzy Homemaker are going to get the suspicion that there just MIGHT be something very wrong. If they do, and if they have any clue, then the next thing that is likely to happen is they are likely to start filling bathtubs. Which means that if this process occurs over, say a 1-2 hour period, water-pressure-as-we-know-it (not all that great anyway), will become a thing of the past, without even GETTING to the rollover! (I guarantee that where I live, it wouldn't take a whole lot of people deciding to do something like this to cause our water 'pressure' to resemble a leak. A very SLOW leak. Which, of course, only makes things more obvious to everybody else when they go to get water for any other purpose.

2 - The next thing that will happen is they will all call the water dept. And of course, they will all get busy signals, except for the first one or two. This would probably precipitate a spate of calls to the phone company, which ought to bury them in busy signals also. (As you can probably tell, I don't have a very high opinion of the local phone company.)

3 - If these sorts of 'cascade' effect failures happen, my guess as to the next likely scenario is that they will all jump in their cars and go haring off to the grocery, gas station, etc. to 'lay in supplies'.

You can see where this line of reasoning goes, and boy does it arrive quickly.

So if anyone is planning a 'Yourdon New Year's Eve Party', washing all the clothes, making sure everyone has had a shower, that all the cars are topped up and that every container that will hold water has water in it, I would suggest that this be done on the evening of the 30th. Assuming that some other trigger event, (stock market tank? Bond market tank? whatever), doesn't set it all off before then.

Just thought I ought to share that line of reasoning with folks, it being something I hadn't thought of before being pushed into it.

-- just anothe (another@engineer.com), October 17, 1999

Answers

Yo! Hey! Don't blame this one on me! I may have said a lot of crazy things in the past coupe of years, but I have NEVER recommended that people take showers or wash their clothes.

Aside from that, your point is an interesting one ... and it's just one of many "anticipatory" actions that we'll see in the days and weeks prior to Jan 1, 2000.

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), October 17, 1999.

Hmmmm. Interesting observation. I read an article a few years back about how the Super Bowl caused major dips in the water pressure amongst cities. Apparently, everybody waited until the commercials to go to the bathroom. In essence, syncronized flushing on a national scale :-)

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), October 17, 1999.

Well, not >>>everybody<<<, but enough to to make a difference, apparently.

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), October 17, 1999.

GiGGle.... hehehe..

-- Tess (preparingfortheworst@prayingforthebest.com), October 17, 1999.

Mr. Yourdon,

So you think I shouldn't take a shower or wash the clothes anymore (Psychotic is hopefully looking at a huge pile of dirty clothes...)???

Sincerely, a big, big fan of yours.

-- Psychotic (y2k@doom&gloom.com), October 17, 1999.

* * * 19991017 Sunday

Just Another Engineer:

Coincidentally, the Y2K rep from the City of Detroit Water & Sewerage Department cited water and sewerage "spikes" that--over the years-- are anticipated. Specifically, New Year's days and Super Bowl game days.

It appears that water/sewerage departments of any consequence have built-in contingencies for such exceptional events.

However, if their computer systems and or dependent infrastructure sectors are non- or dys- functional, it is painfully obvious that water & sewerage will pose a major health and safety to the dependent communities.

At public forums, I've advised that city water/sewerage-dependent folks prepare--in the fall, before the ground freezes down 3-4 feet!-- a cathole (trench) latrine JIC it's needed. Of course, if folks don't have water, they won't have to worry about this contingency.

Regards, Bob Mangus

* * *

-- Robert Mangus (rmangus1@yahoo.com), October 17, 1999.

The prudent thing to do, my friends, is to start filling up those water containers at the beginning of November. That's what we plan to do here -- to avoid the situation of low water pressure. I also plan to stay caught up on laundry (A noble resolution...) between now and then and only have minimal laundry loads to do. Guess we'll stay caught up on the showers too... No way to avoid that last minute task!

-- Libby Alexander (libbyalex@aol.com), October 17, 1999.

I think I'll try to get ahead of the rush and be prepared ahead of time, I'm gonna go take my shower - now.

-Greybear

-- Got Shampoo?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), October 17, 1999.

Ed --

Sorry, did not intend to attribute stuff to you that isn't yours. (You appear to be catching enough flak for the stuff you HAVE published. And I certainly had no intention of adding to it!) The personal hygiene stuff was added when my wife and I were thinking over the sorts of things which might happen at rollover. We cannot have a well where we live, thus, are relatively dependent on the local water company. We have solved the problem to some extent, but some of the measures would need to wait on events to be executed.

Still, anyone who has ever washed in cold water, or worse yet, had to shave with cold water, or has considered the difficulties in providing hot water for these purposes, can understand why we would want to postpone the exigencies for a couple of days. :-)

-- just another (another@engineer.com), October 17, 1999.

Just Another Engineer: Methinks you are giving too much brain-power credit to the masses. My guess is, IF they see this kind of thing on TV (and aren't too busy beggging borrowing or stealing any babysitter they can get their hands on) their first thought WON'T be to fill up the bathtubs.

What does *almost* everyone do when a possible crisis situation is about to occur/occurring? For some odd reason, and I have seen this over and over again, they jump in their cars and go. Where, they don't always know. Mostly Wal-Mart. No worries. I am filling up our tubs and sinks on the 30th, early.

-- Preparing (preparing@home.com), October 17, 1999.

Preparing --

That was what we had come up with also. Actually, that is the 'last minute' preps. We will have several months worth of water, (filtered in fact, as once I got a taste of it filtered, versus non-filtered from the tap, I decided that the extra effort was worth it), as well as other things all ready and in storage. These were just things that looked right to be done at the last moment. Saves us having to haul water for a while, and gives us a little more latitude for things like dish washing etc.

You may be right about the brain power of the masses. Seems to me I read somewhere (in a novel, actually, but I suspect that the author was closer to the truth than might be expected), that the way to measure the intelligence of any large group of people, his example was a mob, but it probably carries over, is to take the intelligence of the lowest IQ member and divide by the number of individuals. Which would make the average mob about as intelligent as a really bright earthworm.

-- just another (another@engineer.com), October 17, 1999.

Greybear,

LOL! LOL!

-- Leslie (***@***.net), October 17, 1999.

So if i've got this straight, everyone by "hoarding" water may create a self-fulfilling prophecy and the important thing is to not change your usual flushing patterns.

-- PD (PaulDMaher@worldnet.att.com), October 17, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

I started a thread on this very issue a while back on the Preparation Forum. It's called: Redirected: Storing Water.

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), October 18, 1999.

No - No - No Paul,

The ones "hoarding" water will be the ones who are NOT flusging, the ones flushing are going to be causing the problem - a few minutes right after the 12 midnight bell - when they cumulatively flush 10 billion toilets all at once.......

Then, just like at the first commercial break after the Super Bowl starts - all h**l breaks loose......and we lose pressure loosing water from the pipes in the first flush of the new century. Then the ones who are hoarding water will have water and the ones not hoarding water will not have water and the ones downstream of the sewage plants will have all the water the the ones who were not hoarding water used to have, unless they were hoarding water at which case they will have all the water they started with plus all the water the other guys used to have who were not hoarding water .....

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), October 18, 1999.

From: Y2K, ` la Carte by Dancr (pic), near Monterey, California

Which reminds me: Will the People Be Blamed?

-- Dancr (addy.available@my.webpage), October 18, 1999.