I have a friend who works as a power dispatcher for a wholesale electric co-op. He is on a committee of area power companies that are talking about contingencies for black outs. If one of their two major plants goes down they need to get station power from another smaller peeking plant. He said they are looking at 12-24 hours turn around for restart after firing up a smaller plant and, swithcing circuits to connect it to the larger plants. This does not take into account fixing any Y2K problems in the larger plants that may have taken them down.

The Honeywell SCADA system that was installed in the mid 1970's is not compliant. They plan on replacing it with a compliant system in March of 1999.

I asked my friend how many employees at this company had purchased their own generators. The answer was serveral, and I have my own plus 100 gallons of fuel already.

My advice; If you don't have your own generator you should at least locate a home of the closest power company employee to your home and get to be real good friends.

The Year 2000 Problem is not The End of the World! http://www.winternet.com/~hvgriner/y2k_hope/ Replace fear with Faith & panic with a Plan

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1998

Answers

Thanks for the excellent post, Henry.

You bring out some good points - it is not time to panic, it is time to plan. It is time to "evangelize" the Y2k issue in your own community, reaching out to your neighbors and community leaders.

Those of us posting in this and other internet forums have some basic understanding of the Y2k issue. Unfortunately, we're in the small minority. I've said before that those of us who are in this small minority have an obligation to ourselves, and our communities, to raise awareness and prod our local leaders. The recent 'drill' in Lubbock, Tx. is a good example of such leadership in action, and should serve as a template for every city and town to learn how to deal with issues ranging from power loss to degraded emergency management services.

It is imperative that companies start speaking frankly on the issue (as did Alliant / Wisconsin Power & Light this week). Government leaders may not listen to a concerned individual who is 'banging the gong', but they will listen to a major company like Alliant. If industry, government, church, and community group leaders can begin to agree that there's a real issue, they can begin working on comprehensive plans to keep basic services operating (at least for some finite period of time).

Unfortunately, time is running short to organize this type of cooperative effort.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1998

I know this is a an old question, but I would like to point out that if the writer has 100 gallons of gas now, it may not do him much good by the time 1 Jan 2000 rolls around. Gas breaks down after awhile, or gets gummy.

-- Anonymous, December 02, 1998