If you have an Adobe Acrobat reader, there is a document about drill preparation strategies and points for discussion about the upcoming April industry drill at:

ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/drill-preparation-strategies.pdf

After reading this document, which was to be used in a recent industry conference, I am rather dismayed. It seemed to me that at least as much emphasis (if not more) is being put on having success for public relations purposes as it is for actually discovering any problem areas. Here are a few excerpts:

1. The April 9 drill is intended to instill public confidence through success and at the same time be a real test of our ability to operate with limited communications capabilities.

*Start planning for it now.

*Prior to drill, test the system(s) that will be exercised during the drill.

*Verify that there are no real security issues during the time of the drill.

*Do not schedule unnecessary maintenance during the time of the drill.

*What will the final report look like. Work backwards from this in the development of the drill procedures.

*Do not make the drill too complex. We want to have a successful and meaningful story for publication.

Is there anyone else who's uncomfortable with some of the points in this document?

-- Anonymous, February 10, 1999

Answers

Uncomfortable is too mild a word. I'd be outraged if I hadn't been exposed to this sort of irresponsible, limited liability, corporate entity, protect the gross self centered interests of the overpaid few at the expense of the many at least once before!

This crap is incredibly disrespectful of the American populace. The bastards are more interested in herding the masses than tending to business. They'd rather tailor the test to make the report look good than to actually test the system to prove it and make it more RELIABLE! The jerks need to be castrated!

This is the sort of garbage that eventually leads to so many people getting pissed off they eventually riot. The only reason these people can get away with this is because they will not be held personally responsible for any harm that comes to anyone due to their actions.

If Y2K causes major problems I hope like hell we will have enough sense to channel our anger and frustrations into constructive ways to put a stop to this sort of irresponsible corporate behavior. I hope we will be able to pierce the corporate veil and tag the people responsible for this and then restructure the laws that apply to corporations to forever prevent them from endangering the public interests.

This is the United States of America! Of the people, By the people, and for the people! This is what our more perfect union was established for. Us! Not the corporate elite! They are not monarchs!

I'm gonna go cool down a bit but if it comes to it I will fight and I will focus my energies on the people and the exact reasons why we are going through this trauma.

steve

-- Anonymous, February 10, 1999

Bonnie,

I did a little poking around, and on page 9 of the following document:

ftp://www.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/2-99-breakout-sessions.p df

it says:

"The April 9 drill is intended to instill public confidence through success and at the same time be a real test of our ability to operate with limited communications capabilities. How can these two goals be balanced to provide the greatest value from the exercise?"

Sounds to me that they're just as interested in reassuring the public of their "success" as they are in getting anything useful out of the drill...

Jon

-- Anonymous, February 10, 1999

(from the same document, page 10):

"What kinds of information is appropriate for release to electricity customers and the public in the coming months? Can public disclosures be made more detailed without causing negative side effects or placing the utility at a greater risk for litigation?"

Gee, nice to see they're worrying about telling us the truth, instead of worrying about how they'll get sued...

And CL wonders why we're skeptical...

Jon

-- Anonymous, February 10, 1999

Steve, I'm reminded of a scene from one of the Star Trek movies when Kirk replied to Dr. McCoy, "Don't mince words, Bones, tell me what you really think." *smile*

Jon, glad to see you found the other "Workshop materials" too. Any readers who want to check these out, go to:

http://www.nerc.com/~y2k/y2kworkshop0299.html

I read the ones in Acrobat format last night, and Jon is right -- none of them inspire confidence. The others are in Powerpoint format, which I don't have on my computer. My husband has it on his laptop, though, and he'll be home tomorrow. If anybody else can access the Powerpoint documents before then, I'd love to know what they say. I thought the "distribution testing" doc might be interesting, as well as all the others.

-- Anonymous, February 10, 1999

After reading several powerpoint presentations that Bonnie has referenced, my good feelings about what I heard from Bob at the CT DPUC today have diminished significantly. Maybe he is a spin master afterall as I am only too anxious to hear positive news.

What disturbs me is that April 9, 1999 is a coding anomaly in many legacy computer systems. Why they chose this date by my recollection is that maybe they have no other choice. Why don't they test it on April 2, 1999?

The caveats are still there - if the telcoms don't work the power will fail, if the power fails the telecoms won't work.

I wouldn't be surprised if the power blacked out on April 9, 1999 Bummer!

-- Anonymous, February 10, 1999

Bonnie,

* To answer your last question 1st.

Is there anyone else who's uncomfortable with some of the points in this document?

* YES ME!!! I was not at the NERC conference, so there may have been dialogue that make these items seem reasonable. But any IDIOT should see that reasonable people would question the integrity of anyone posting this kind of CRAP on the Internet. See what I meant about the pointy haired ones?

*Some of the bullets you pointed out ARE actually reasonable. For example: - Start planning for it now. * This is a no-brainer. A drill of this scope has never been attempted before.

- Prior to drill, test the system(s) that will be exercised during the drill.

* This is not fixing the test. There are back-up communication systems that must be used in order for the Dispatch Centers to operate in the blind (no EMS/SCADA.) These communications systems were installed for Black Start capability and may not have been exercized for many years. PL carrier voice communications may be used that have not been used in years. The goal is to see if the Dispatch center personnel and remote personnel in plants and substations are capable of relaying metering and status manually sufficiently to operate the system. Plants and Dispatch centers use rotating shifts, so the operators must be trained on the commo equipment prior to the drill. The equipment must be working for the tng to be effective.

- Do not schedule unnecessary maintenance during the time of the drill

* This is the very issue that you all were alarmed about in the thread "why would they choose these dates. When doing maintenance, system stability is reduced, the impact of a simultaneous fault is multiplied, etc. We do not allow maintenance on the hottest and coldest days of the year for the same reason. Good, prudent call.

1. The April 9 drill is intended to instill public confidence through success and at the same time be a real test of our ability to operate with limited communications capabilities.

*Verify that there are no real security issues during the time of the drill.

. * Don't know what they were talking about here. Doesn't sound fishy though.

*What will the final report look like. Work backwards from this in the development of the drill procedures.

- Do not make the drill too complex. We want to have a successful and meaningful story for publication.

* It is proper to guard against scope creep in the 1st drill. Remember, we have another in September that will be more complex. Also do not want to overload normal operations with drill communications with commo systems that are unfamiliar. HOWEVER, THE REST OF THE STATEMENT IS HIGHLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND STUPID! The pointy haired rocket scientist who dreamed this up ought to flogged by all of us trying to dilligently test and convince others of our sincerity. YOU NOW HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO DISBELIVE EVERYTHING I'VE EVER POSTED BECAUSE OF THIS IDIOCY This is not how my company is approaching this drill. We want to test our ability to operate with a loss of outside telecomm and are assuming a loss of SCADA/EMS. We see this drill as an opportunity to find problems with a new and novel engineering solution while there is still time fine tune procedures before the time comes when the operative phrase will be "this is NOT a drill".

STEVE,

About accountability - If I am wrong, If I have any Y2K failures of my equipment I'll lose my job and in about 6 mos my savings will be gone and I'll be without light, heat, and a roof INDEFINITELY.

What if you are wrong? What if there are no sig failures? I'll bet that for every person who posts here there are 100 lurking. What about a scenario where your one of your posts is the final factor in a person's decision to spend money they don't have and can't afford? Will YOU be accountable? All I have been asking for is an even handed, reasoned approach that holds reports of gloom & doom to the same standards of proof that HONEST utility test reporting is subjected to.

UNFORTUNATELY, my observations that the NERC reporting is consistant with utility reporting are now suspect (and rightly so I suppose) due to the ASSHOLE who wrote this NERC CRAP. I promise, if I see any examples of boldface lies or intent to deceive I will tell you. (THIS example is the first I have seen, I HOPE that the dialogue of the presentation is the missing link that somehow legitimizes this). Everything regarding testing observations have been square between my observations and the NERC reports. This document is SO unfortunate.

"Distant cousin from down the line, brand of people who ain't my kind. Holy Moses, ...." .

-- Anonymous, February 11, 1999

Oops.

Lesson #1 - Never respond without proofreading. Lesson #2 - Never respond late at night with little or no sleep. Lesson #3 - Read all the materials, not just the link supplied. Lesson #4 - Admit and apologize for your mistakes.

The NERC thread from the Y2K conference is NOT a NERC policy or even a NERC recommendation. I doubt it reflects the policy or opinion of NERC.

It was presented by one individual utility representative. I do not think that many utilities have the philosophy that has been inferred by the reading of this presentation. What has been inferred may not even reflect the intentions of the speaker - some are more gifted at others at communicating their thoughts. Perhaps he was just expressing a concern for public mis-interpretation of the drill objectives (this can happen - remember the thread here "Why would they choose these dates?").

Apologies to ALL for the rash and hasty judgement (that I have been so critical of here) and the bad language. I wish I could take it back. Sorry.

-- Anonymous, February 11, 1999

Bonnie,

I looked over many of the PowerPoint presentations at the link you provided. It looks like they are working very hard on the matter but are concealing much. I found it helpful to glance over them but it might not help much to get snippets of many of them. With that said I'll give some quotes from one titled "Working Customers Presentation"

(for those not familiar with Power Point; It is a slide presentation program that a speaker uses to highlight points that he/she is talking about. One slide goes up on a monitor or a big screen for the audience to focus on, then the next slide and so on as the talk continues. I'm quoting from the slides here but there is not a record of what the speaker is saying.) [*My comments are in brackets*]

The first slide: "Session 2-D Working with Electricity Customers"

The second slide: "Type of Information for Release?

-Customer specific surveys

-NERC data

-Responses to FAQ

-General Project Status Info

-Validation of Status

-Education regarding grid operations

-Restoration procedures and priorities

The third slide: "What Is Level of Detail?

-Overall,is increasing, but maybe not the level of NERC data, which may be hard to understand [*how about may be proven to be bogus?*]

-Actual test results

-Length of potential outages [*THIS IS NOT A TYPO*]

-Customer need so they know what to plan for [*THIS IS WHAT WE'VE BEEN SEARCHING FOR!*]

The fourth slide: "Release NERC Status Reports?

-Upon request to Commercial & Industrial customers (with confidentiality in some cases), regulators upon request with some confidentiality [*Senators Bennet & Dodd too?*]

-Concern about what data will be used for

-Level of detail is too much for some customers

I looks like someone in there is considering being so very awfully nice as to think we might like to know what the length of potential outages might be! Imagine that.

What about that confidentiality business eh? Won't even give data to regulators without confidentiality? I wonder how much insider information Senator Bennet is privy to? Anyone out there have an idea here? Are any of Senator Bennet's aids lurking here?

Here are a few quotes from the presentation titled:

"Emergency Services Local Government Presentation"

-National NERC info is good but the status of local programs is needed

-Make sure local government understand the actual risk to the electric infrastructure [*Please do! My local is oblivious!*]

-provide information on the safe use of generators [*How thoughtful!*]

-plan through the critical timeframes, not just 1-1-2000, loads will increase on 1-3-2000" [*What happens on Uno-de-Mayo?*]

Has anyone reading this forum heard the NERC speaking about the safe use of generators anywhere?

As you can see there is a good deal of info we aren't getting that we should be getting.

I will go out on a limb here and suggest there will be more data forthcoming in the coming months that will dramatically alter the way many of us view the Y2K problem. I believe much of that data is avaible today to a priveledged few.

Steve

-- Anonymous, February 11, 1999

I don't find this "drill" to be very informative.

-- Anonymous, February 11, 1999

The thread has wandered from the "Drill". Maybe the title should be changed.

Another Power Point slideshow on the NERC website, entitled; " Blockbuster Entertainment Presentation" appears to have originated within the Blockbuster corporation. Of particular interest are the following quotes;

Electric Supply Systems

-Expect NO Interuption of power to our stores

and the next slide which states:

-Again, we expect NO power interruptions because power plants have manual overrides.

two slides later we see this;

Summary

-We need to know from the utilities if our assumptions are correct?

-Tell us in plain english; yes or no. If yes, what is the problem and when will it be fixed?

on the following slide we read;

-Communicate....... -Communicate......

-We do not need any surprise shutoffs due to these issues.

I'm glad the NERC is aware of what is going on. This Blockbuster Entertainment Presentation shows how people are striving to take information readily available to them and make clear decisions about what to do. It also shows how many of us find ourselves questioning the data the decisions are being based on, (which muddies the decision and fills us with uncertainty).

Whoever wrote this got it right when saying; Tell us in plain english; yes or no. If yes, what is the problem and when will it be fixed?

Communicate...... Communicate....

We do not need any surprise shutoffs due to these issues.

Well said. Well said.

I think this presentation speaks for so very many of us. We all need to make decisions and to base those decisions on reliable information. Unfortunately the reliable information is being held back and we are sent searching for the answers.

Steve

-- Anonymous, February 11, 1999

Thanks so much for the VERY thought-provoking exchange. More, more!

[encouragement from the sidelines...]

gdbls/diane

-- Anonymous, February 11, 1999

Remember -- Plausible Deniability -- a strategic planner's best friend.

-- Anonymous, February 12, 1999