May 6, 1999:
Jay Golter was scheduled to give an Introduction to Y2K session and I had to go to give him the overhead projector I had used for my 2 meetings. When I got there, 3 people had already arrived. They were all members of the same family. One other person came. Jay gave his usual, magnificent, presentation. I don't understand how anyone could listen to him and not "get it." The problem lies in getting more folks to come out and listen.
April 29, 1999:
I hosted a preparedness meeting for the Northern Virginia Y2K Community Action Group. This was a new type of meeting for the group, so I had spent a great deal of time preparing my presentation. I spent half a day putting up flyers around town in hopes of drawing lots of people. The only attendees heard about the meeting from our regular NOVAY2K email update. My presentation was too elementary for the group. The discussion was lively and all expressed a desire to have another meeting. While I was encouraged by the spiritedness of the conversation, I am disheartened that no "newbies" came. I had hoped for the opportunity to gently urge some doubters to action.
April 28, 1999:
I attended two Y2K meetings hosted by the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. I was a member of the audience for both. The first meeting was a panel on Y2K Community Preparedness. Two panelists spoke about organizing their neighborhoods with some success. Panelist, Jim Crawford, of Southern Maryland Millennium Action Committee, was concerned because his meetings that used to draw up to 300 people now, due to "happy talk," only draw small groups. He is worried about growing complacency and apathy.
Panelist, Philip Bogdonoff, of The Friendship Heights Year 2000 Group (Washington, D.C.), talked of training themselves and others to facilitate and educate about Y2K. He called it Y2K 101.
He said that outreach is difficult. His group draws good crowds, but many of the attendees are members of other Y2K groups, rather than members of his community. He stated that we need to have
credible Y2K spokesmen. He said that the media needs to be educated about Y2K.
Panelist, Harrison Fox, professional staff member of the U.S. House of Representatives Government Reform and
Oversight Committee, said, "Y2K will potentially touch everyone in the world." He said the following are possible:
Gas shortages
Air traffic control problems
Health care problems
Spot electrical failures
Gas line explosions (no one followed up on this one)
Post Office will fail "big time"
Telecommunications can fail
Transportation (rail, air, boat) can fail
Airports can have major problems
Margaret Anderson, the discussant, was worried about the poor, the elderly, food stamps, pensions and child support.
I pointed out that food stamps wouldn't do much good if the stores didn't have any food. I also pointed out that if the people who can prepare don't, we'll all be poor.
Dr. Paula Gordon said that it's a waste of time to find out what local utility companies are doing. "Just decide to prepare."
This made wonderful sense to me because I have been beating myself up for not spending more time talking to local utility companies to get first hand information. I realized that I don't really think
it matters what the companies say. They can still have unforeseen embedded controller problems causing failures, in spite of testing. They can have problems with their suppliers. The supply of
imported oil can dry up (50% of our oil comes from foreign sources).
I talked to Paula after the meeting and told her the impact her statement had on me. She gave me a mini business lecture about a concept called "Advocacy Evaluation." She said you need to
evaluate both the information and what you need to know to make your policy decision.
Meeting two was another panel. Panelist one was "Spanky" Kirsch. He described himself as the Department of Defense Y2K spokesman. He said that in 1996, the DOD had 1 woman studying Y2K. In
1997, there were 3 people on Y2K. In 1998 12 people made up their Y2K staff. He described what he called the "December Miracle." The December Miracle was when magic happened and the
Department of Defense became almost Y2K ready. He reminded me of a used car salesman. I asked him if a system was declared Y2K ready when the decision to purchase new software was made. He squirmed
and looked very uncomfortable. I didn't believe him when he described how, amazingly, many systems became compliant in 180 days.
He also said that an aircraft carrier has about 50,000 embedded chips.
Panelist, Richard Tinsman, of the Coast Guard, told a more believable story. He told of offshore oil wells, each containing 10,000 embedded chips. He painted a picture of Captains of the
Port overseeing what ships were allowed in and out of ports. He said that they know things will go wrong. They are prepared to keep the ports open and "assess the risk by due diligence"
for every ship wanting to come into port.
He said that embedded chips may cause problems in pipelines, refineries and tankers. Tankers have hundreds of embedded chips.
Tinsman also said, "If we haven't fixed it yet, it's too late."
Dr. Gordon clarified the term, "winter storm," when used in reference to Y2K. She said she was talking in terms of the Canadian ice storm of 1998, which kept parts of Ontario and Quebec
without power for over a month. She is especially worried about the chemical industry and nuclear power plants.
April 27, 1999:
I showed up at a local library to give NOVA Y2K's (Northern Virginia Y2K Community Action Group) standard introduction to Y2K talk. I had posted flyers about this session all over town, including the other nearby library and every place else I could think of. Jay Golter, acting president of NOVAY2K , showed up to give me the overhead projector. Three very nice women arrived. It was clear very obvious that they didn't need an intro session. They were there to connect with others in the community who were concerned about Y2K. I didn't give the Intro talk. We all just chatted for a while about our preparedness efforts.
