I was at an electric industry Y2k conference last week, and had the opportunity to listen to a presentation by Ms. Judy List from Bellcore, who also provided testimony to Senator Bennett's committee in the not to distant past. For those of you unfamiliar with Bellcore, they are the go-to folks for Y2k remediation in the telecommunications industry.

The entire presentation was a bit disconcerting for me. She talked about total project management, and the scope of this project management in the telcom industry. Her diagram of the potential Y2k hardware impacts on a typical 1-800 toll free customer was eye opening in and of itself. I won't go into the entire presentation here, but one thing in particular struck me - her discussions of contingency planning that was applicable to any service industry, such as electric or telcom.

A component of her suggested contingency planning preparation was the evaluation of possible mutual aid requirements. In other words, if your power company has a significant failure due to Y2k, other power companies will come to the aid of your company to assist in service restorations. After the presentation, I asked her about this facet of her recommended plan - my contention was that contingency planning must be crafted in anticipation of the *absence* of mutual aid. Y2k is an equal opportunity impactor - it's not like a hurricane, where problems would be limited to a specific geographic region.

She seemed to agree, to a point, but still felt that incorporating mutual aid into contingency plans was appropriate. I said I felt that such reliance in a true Y2k contingency plan gives a false sense of security. My point was that "contingency planning" has to take into account the most probable worst case scenario - and certainly, other utilities being impacted would be in that scenario for Y2k - and that every company needed to be practiced in the art of service restorations in total isolation from the rest of the industry. In other words, no reliance on mutual aid.

I'd be interested in hearing some views on this issue. Am I missing something?

-- Anonymous, December 05, 1998

Answers

If mutual aid is counted on in the power industry, why do I hear of

so many utilities weighing their options as far cutting themselves

off from the grid if things become uncontrolable? The predisposition

would seem to be to save oneself first and let the rest survive or not

on their own.

on their own.

-- Anonymous, December 06, 1998

Rick,

Of course you're not missing anything. That's the #1 reason why I have a (relatively) pessimistic view on the outcome of Y2K with respect to a society breakdown. Many people who are supposed to be preparing for this (from industry) are viewing it in terms of any other breakdown, and it just isn't going to work that way.

BTW, we're on day 390 today... We started week 55 on Saturday...

Later, Jon

-- Anonymous, December 07, 1998

I work at Wisconsin Electric Power Company, on the T&D side. In my experience, the term "mutual aid" has referred to the arrangements that electric utilities have made for loaning line crews, construction equipment and associataed support staff to one another when needed to repair damage done by major storms. Typically these agreements do not require a ulility to respond to a request for aid -- rather thay just spell out administrative arrangements of who to contact for help, who has approval authority, who does what with regards to logistics issues, understandings about how supporting utility will be compensated, etc.

I think it would be reasonable for utilities to consider expanding these agreements to encompass sharing of other types of personnel resources that may be needed during during a Y2K emergency -- e.g., control engineers, instrumentation & control technicians, IT analysts. From what I have heard, the industry is not expecting wide-spread problems but is preparing contingeny plans to deal with the possibility of isolated company and/or regional problems. It would certainly be handy to have the contact names of compiled and the administrative issues worked out ahead of 1/1/2000, to help expedite response. Just as for major storms, the individual utilities should not assume that other utilities will respond -- but it is likely that some could and would if these types of preparations were made ahead of time.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 1998

Rick, I have noticed a pattern of what I can only term "rational disconnect" in the 10Q Year 2000 statements by corporations of all types. Most of these statements begin with a short description of the problem and generally conclude that description with words similar to "potentially causing malfunctions or failures which could materially affect operations". (For those not accustomed to the legalistic phrase, "materially affect", I offer my own translation of "could be very bad for us.")

Also, in the External Factors section, or the Forward Looking Disclosure section, they all state that they have no control over, or way to completely assess the readiness of suppliers/vendors or power pool customers, or other areas which would impact their business and are vulnerable to "material adverse affects" from those areas.

In contradiction to this, when you read the Risk Assessment part, most of them conclude that the "most reasonably likely worst-case scenario" is a short term inability to deliver service. In the utility sector, this line is usually accompanied by an assurance that utilities are already prepared to deal with "temporary disruptions" as they do for storms, etc., and the contingency plans are already in place - but will be modified if needed to address the Year 2000 problem.

This could be explained as a Public Relations exercise; an attempt not to present scenarios which might induce a measure of panic in stock holders. In my view, however, it fits in with your observations at the industry conference, in that industries as a whole ARE thinking of Y2K in terms of a hurricane or winter storm. When it comes to contingency plans, most do not make any distinctions between potential Y2K failures and the limited geographic region problems they have experienced in the past. So, if you are missing anything, Rick, it's that your realistic assessment of "probable worst case scenarios" just doesn't appear to be the same as the worst case scenarios in the minds of many of the industrial powers that be.

The good news is that there ARE some utilities and other businesses which have thought of all the possibilities and are making plans to do whatever can be done to deal with an absence of mutual aid. However, most are stuck in the "this is the way it's always been dealt with before" thought pattern. Somehow, they need to accept that this global computer dating problem has NOT ever happened before, and expand their plans accordingly.

I am reminded of debriefing sessions on the news after Desert Storm, when it became public knowledge that General Schwarzkopf could have initiated our troop action earlier but held off for a massive supply-link maneuver to be accomplished first. This was because there were contradictory intelligence reports about the readiness of the Red Guard and the General properly followed the military stance of preparing for _all conceivable eventualities_ even though it was believed we could have done the job even before the logistics were completed. If utilities were to adapt the "Failure Is Not An Option" mentality of the military, then they too, would be implementing the type of contingency plans you suggest -- regardless of whether they deem them to be "probable" or not.

And I think I can safely say that all of us who will be affected if the power does go off, absolutely want and have the right to expect NOT just "due diligence" from a company (to keep the lawyers happy), but a true "Failure Is Not An Option" mindset. Keep after them, Rick. Logic is on your side.

-- Anonymous, December 07, 1998