Conscious Choice: Not with a Bang Nor a Wimper: Y2K and You

January 1999

Not with a Bang Nor a Wimper: Y2K and You

by Edmund J. McDevitt

The Year 2000 problem in perspective
A bit more than 33 years ago, on Tuesday, November 9, 1965, virtually all of New York State, all of New England except Maine and a bit of New Hampshire and some of New Jersey, experienced what became known as The Great Northeast Blackout. It began at 5:16 PM on an ordinary workday. For almost 13 hours over 30 million people were without power. I remember what a lark it was. It was so odd, so unexpected and so without precedent. People walked the streets, talked with each other, and even had impromptu parties in the dark. By late July and early August 1966 one result of the blackout became news: a significant bulge in births occurred in those months.

In the early days of January 1998 four inches of ice coated houses, roads, trees, and electric lines, poles, and towers from eastern New York State through Vermont and parts of New Hampshire and Maine and up into Quebec. This was some of the same area, but was no 13-hour lark. For many people it meant as much as 23 days without power, destruction of businesses, collapsed homes and utter disruption of their lives. We in the Midwest have experienced hours, even a few days of loss of power, but nothing like this. FEMA reviewed the event and its aftermath two months later and noted, as an example of the devastation, the following about one part of the disaster area:

Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. (NIMO) had over 120,000 meters (400,000 people) out of power at peak in Jefferson, St. Lawrence, Franklin, Lewis, and Clinton counties. Hundreds of customers were without power for up to 23 days in this 7,000 sq. mile area. The company fielded 1,300 repair personnel and committed more than 4,000 people to the company’s disaster response. Over 8,000 transmission and distribution poles were damaged. (This is 50 percent of an average year’s pole installation for NIMO’s entire transmission area.) In addition over 2,000 high voltage transmission structures, 300-plus miles of wire and 1,500-plus power transformers were damaged or destroyed. NIMO’s preliminary cost estimate was $100 million plus.

In the time that elapsed between the two events our society changed in major ways. Now much more is done with machinery and devices that operate with electricity. The so-called "supply chain" is highly dependent upon technology and communications, particularly upon "just-in-time" delivery. In 1965, little that affected the average person was done with anything that might have been called a computer. Today, though we don’t think about it that much, we depend very much upon "interconnectedness."

What happened in the ice storm demonstrated how helpless we can be if things suddenly stop working. Just how dependent and unaware we are reflected in something else FEMA noted:

Safety concerns require careful prioritized coordination between government agencies involved in disaster response. These priorities need to be publicized. During the ice storm, systems were overloaded and electric power was lost for a considerable period of time. This resulted in a loss of communication capability. In addition, battery operated TVs, radios and cell phones could not be recharged and were quickly inoperative so a large portion of the population in the declared counties were unaware of the size and impact of the disaster event.

Local news updates were not available because many stations did not have sufficient backup generator capacity.

I do not mention these events to alarm anyone or to cause a panic. But we all need to be aware of the potential for significant disruption that looms just one year from now. Our advantage is that we know ahead of time that something is going to happen.

No, it isn’t going to be like Mad Max or The Road Warrior, as some "experts" would want you to believe. But our world is going to be, shall we say, very different for a while. So we need to be prepared, as the people in the ice storm were not. Hindsight has told them that things might have been better had they done certain things, but they had no incentive to do those things. We do.

So what is the problem now?
It’s been in all the papers. But what’s been there has been concerned with what companies and governments are doing. It is very clear, however, that the problem is larger than anyone — even the experts — thought a couple of years ago. And it touches everyone, everywhere.

Corporations and local, state, and federal governments are working like crazy to fix a problem that has its genesis in the early‘60s, the very early days of digital computing. Back then computer memory was very expensive. So was storage. Programmers who wasted space with unnecessary data were sent to another line of work. So the many date fields in data allowed for two positions for the year: 01/01/60. If you’d asked any systems person back then if this would cause a problem when the century turned, they would all have said, "Sure, but this program won’t be around then." What systems folks hadn’t counted on was that the habit of coding the year with two positions would continue into the‘90s. And they certainly didn’t anticipate that some of the very large systems they put together in the‘70s and‘80s would still be in use by 2000. But many are, all over the world.

Humans are imitative, and as a rule take the easiest way: the shortest distance between two points, and all that. So people who built things with chips in them that keep track of dates (for maintenance and other reasons) encoded the year in those chips with two positions also. Don’t get on your high horse and come down on them. You do it too. If you’ve used a spreadsheet or a database, you’ve probably created date fields that have two positions for the year when you could have used a four-position field. You did it out of habit. Many of us learned long ago to write dates that way: 01/01/99. The chip-builders also saved space in the registers of the chip by using two positions.

In 1960 there weren’t that many computers or chips around. Most of the computing was done by the federal government, universities, and large financial organizations — banks, insurance companies and the like. Little or nothing that you or I would have used had anything remotely like a computer or a chip in it.

In today’s world not many things that we use directly or indirectly come without some sort of chip and many or most of the chips have dates encoded in them against which they calculate. Cars, medical equipment, ATMs, our water systems, cell phones, business phone systems, elevators, building environment systems, traffic lights, the computer on your desk and the ones at the IRS (which may be good news, but maybe not) all have one or many chips in them that have dates encoded on them. Many of the date codes have two-position years, so when "00" or anything after it comes up, the chips will calculate as if the 00 is the beginning of the sequence (that is, 00, 01, 02, 03, etc.). This means that for all intents and purposes, a calculation of 00 with respect to 99 will come out at 99 years. If your device (in your car, your elevator, your ATM) is programmed to shut down if, for example, maintenance is not done in a certain time, a result of "99 years" will get it to shut down immediately. Financial calculations — mortgages and other time-based calculations, interest, time value of money, float calculations — will result in major errors. But wait. There’s more.

Dr. Edward Yardeni, Chief Economist and a Managing Director of Deutsche Bank Securities (North America), in his publication, Year 2000 Recession? "Prepare for the worst. Hope for the best.", writes that the biggest and most widespread disruptions might be caused by . . . embedded systems that are not Y2K compliant."

Yardeni’s list of systems that might be affectd by Y2K includes office systems; building systems, including heating, lighting, and ventilation; manufacturing processes, including water and sewer systems, power grid systems, refineries, and factories; medical equipment; transportation systems, including ticketing systems, planes trains and everything related to automobiles; communications systems; and financial systems, from automated tellers to cash registers.

"Replacing embedded chips isn’t easy," opines Yardeni. "Some are customized and hard to duplicate. The manufacturers of some are out of business or have been acquired by other companies that do not intend to upgrade an "out-of-print"chip. Replacing chips older than three years is almost impossible because they have a short technical life span."

Don’t hold your breath, though, as the clock strikes twelve on December 31, 1999. Computers often operate according to intervals rather than specific dates. "An event might need to occur at 100-day intervals rather than on the 5th day of each month," explains Yardeni. "This implies that Y2K problems may occur both before and for some time after January 1, 2000 and not at all on the date itself. . . . The failure may not occur on the stroke of midnight but during the following 24 hours."

Where in the world is the problem?
Everywhere in the world. And in some places there may be remedies that don’t quite work. In a November, 1997 Congressional hearing on the global impact of the Y2K problem in 1997, Constance A. Morella, Chairwoman, Subcommittee on Technology of the House Science Committee said, "I hope to leave this hearing with more confidence about the international recognition of the problem than a few weeks ago when I was told a story — allegedly true — by a State Department official after I gave a Year-2000 speech.

"It seems that the State Department had their Foreign Service Officers survey the governments where they were posted about the Year 2000 problem. One officer, in an unnamed country, asked the local officials there, how they intended to respond to the Year 2000 millennium bug. He was told,‘Not to worry my friend. We are prepared to spray anywhere and everywhere.’"

Some parts of our world actually are or will be ready. Many won’t. The U.S., Canada and Australia are among the few countries that are very aware and are proceeding with fixes. Mexico’s government is likely to be prepared but very little of Mexico’s business world will have fixes in. Brazil, with the biggest economy in Latin America, is and will be woefully unprepared.

Many European countries have just discovered the problem and are just beginning — at a time when the people who can fix the problem, the programmers and the analysts, are a very rare commodity. Surprisingly, one of the least prepared is Germany, where there is great reluctance to spend the money necessary to fix the problem.

The former Soviet bloc is anywhere from somewhat prepared to without a clue. Russia, which according to Yardeni became aware of the problem in May 1998, seems to think that their extensive use of recent PCs, recent PC software, and bootlegged systems, along with their abandonment of old mainframes, will make the Y2K problem a non-issue for them. They are probably wrong.

Asia has pockets of awareness and preparation, but money has become scarce throughout the region and it is becoming clear that Asia’s level of preparedness will be low. Japan will only be partially prepared and may suffer substantial economic disruption. China has problems peculiar to how it has computerized — with much pirated and much special software — and has severe shortages in resources available for the work. Yardeni notes that in China certain incentives apply, however:

In a September 1998 decree, the State Council declared that all government computer systems must be revised by March 1999 and testing must be completed by September 1999. Those that fail to meet the deadlines will be punished. Rumor has it that those who fail will be shot.

And will we be ready here in the U.S.? Probably not. But what does that mean?
Does it mean that it’s the apocalypse? Is the sky falling? Is there a vast conspiracy hiding the facts from us? No and no. And no.

It means that you will see, beginning soon, some odd things happening — or at least reports of odd things. News reports will begin to focus on the failures as they accumulate. And accumulate they will, starting September 9,1999 (9/9/99).

You will see reports of countries suddenly discovering that things are far worse than they thought they would be. Some are already assuming the worst and preparing for it. Canada will have their military and police on alert. Even prepared countries, including the U.S., will be ready to declare martial law for a time. Many of the small businesses in the U.S. will wake up sometime in 1999 to find out that they are in deep trouble and have no way to get out of it.

Should we hunker down, disappear into our locked homes, and wait it out? Hardly. More likely we should do as Paloma O’Riley, founder of The Cassandra Project suggests in the Utne Reader supplement, Y2K Citizen’s Action Guide:

"The year 2000 problem represents a potentially difficult time for all of us. However, let’s not lose sight of the fact that it’s a temporary bump (or pothole) in the road — not the end of the world. No one knows what will happen, or how serious it will be. However, we can and will get through this or any other difficulties, if we all work together.

"Many people ask what they can do to protect themselves. Should they go off to the woods, move to another state? Others want to know if they should withdraw their money from the bank. I say No! Why?

"There are over 260 million people in this country alone. You think you’ll be the only one in the woods? They will all be focused on their own survival, perhaps at the risk of yours. Then there’s the larger issue — if everyone leaves, who will be left to keep the communities and cities going? What will be left to come back to?

"If 5 percent or less of depositors take their money out of the banks, the banks will close. How does intentionally crippling the financial infrastructure help you, your family, or your community? How will we be able to rebuild? It’s not about‘me’ anymore, it’s about‘we’; and our individual actions can and will impact everyone, for good or ill.

"Individual preparedness is for those who can; community preparedness is for those who can and those who can’t. What kind of world will be left if the elderly, the poor, the ill and the disabled are abandoned, perhaps to suffer or die? Is that the world we want our children to inherit? The life lesson and legacy we wish to pass on?

"Life isn’t just survival, it’s about living, building, growing — and passing it on to the next generation. The only way to get through this is to pull together and work through it as a community. Problems can’t be escaped; they can only be dealt with. If you are concerned about your safety, the best means of securing it is to help your neighbor prepare; and work with your community to develop needed and appropriate plans.

"As for me and mine, we’ll be staying right here. Our neighbors, the seniors down the road and my family will sink or swim together. My only hope and wish is that there will be enough of us to keep each others’ heads above water when we tire. Eventually, the storm will pass and we will wade ashore, together. I hope we’ll see you there."

Guides, Things to Read, and Web Sites
If you get nothing else, download and print (about 120 pages) the Utne Reader Y2K Citizens Guide. It is an invaluable resource.

Y2K information on the web is an industry in itself. The Cassandra Project has many links that are helpful.

Some of the more informative web sites:
FEMA winter tips

Year 2000 Information Center

GAO’s information on Federal Government readiness

Embedded systems info from the Institute of Electrical Engineers

Information on electric utilities

Health care information from the RX2000 Solutions Institute

Best general clearinghouse on Y2K information

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