Today is the first National Testing Date for y2k (April 9th). I was reminded of this this morning when at about 7:05 am I heard a large BOOM in my apartment in sunny Tampa. I found out just a few minutes ago that TECO's power plant at around Appollo Beach (15 or so miles from my home) had a major explosion. Can anyone verify if this was related to Y2k or whether it was just a general explosion (if there is such a thing)?

MB

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Answers

To answer my own question before anyone makes fun of me. It is only 8:30am so forgive me for my incorrect use of dates. It is APRIL 8th not the ninth. Which means, while it may have been Y2k oriented, chances are it was just an explosion in a generator. Sorry.

MB

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

It's been two hours since the explosion, and television new coverage reports that the explosion was caused by a hydrogen gas leak. One person is dead and up to 20 others are injured, some badly burned and in critical condition. A TECO spokesperson has said that the generator, one of 6 at the plant, was shut down for "routine maintenance". There are also reports that the blast happened during testing. It is still speculation, but if TECO plans to participate in the scheduled NERC drill tomorrow, it is most reasonable to believe that this testing would have been related to their Y2K remediation process. Are the news crews asking that question?

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

I just heard it was testing related on the news and my cube mate stated that she read in the paper that TECO and FPL (Florida Power and Light) were doing their own Y2k System Testing today (prior to the national test). Questions, if I were the news...I would ask.

MB

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Here is the story I plucked from Ed Yourdon's Forum, thanks to Online2Much:

http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=HOME&SITE=FLSAR and go to national news. Power Plant Blast Kills 1, Hurts 20

TAMPA, Fla. (AP)  A powerful blast rocked an electrical generating plant this morning, killing one worker and injuring at least 20 people.

The explosion, heard miles away, tore a huge hole in a wall at the Tampa Electric Co. power plant at Port Sutton, on the edge of Tampa Bay southeast of downtown Tampa.

Debris could be seen filling a yard at the plant outside of the hole.

The blast came as a generator was being tested, and a hydrogen gas leak was suspected, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

At least 20 people were taken to hospitals, said TECO spokesman Mike Mahoney. Four of the injured were critically burned and taken to Tampa General Hospital.

The plant is just off U.S. 41 about two miles southeast of downtown Tampa, across an arm of Tampa Bay from Tampa's port.

It is TECO's second-largest power plant and employs about 250 people, 190 of whom were there at the time of the blast, Mahoney said.

No power interruptions to electrical customers were reported.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

If I remember correctly from my tour of a large coal fired powerplant, generators are filled with NITROGEN to inhibit explosions and other nasties. What is hydrogen doing in a generator?

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

MB could you provide us with the name of the newspaper?

I just heard it was testing related on the news and my cube mate stated that she read in the paper that TECO and FPL (Florida Power and Light) were doing their own Y2k System Testing today (prior to the national test)

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Note the last sentence of this portion of a Tampa newspaper article, this was a routine maintenance outage. Get off the Y2K conspiracy crap. Electrical work is dangerous anytime, but especially at generating stations. Maintenance work goes on around you all the time, and unless something goes wrong you take it for granted. ============================================================== TAMPA - A numbing explosion at a Tampa Electric Co. generating plant southeast of Tampa Thursday morning killed one person, injured 50 others and rocked homes for miles around.

Four people reportedly in critical condition were airlifted from the scene shortly after the blast at 7:20 a.m. and taken to area hospitals. Rescue crews made two sweeps through the Gannon Station plant, which employs about 250 people, looking for victims.

By 10 a.m., everyone had been accounted for, company officials said.

Officials are investigating whether a hydrogen gas leak in one of the six generators at the plant near Port Sutton may have caused the explosion.

The generator that blew up was not operating and was undergoing annual routine maintenance being performed by an outside contractor.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

gosh, you sound a tad 'miffed.' i feel that the search for knowledge requires an open mind...putting one at risk to hear *all sides* of an issue or situation not only the answers that bolster one's position.

i, myself, am interested in reading the article that was cited below...you know, the one before the explosion occurred, the one that mentions preliminary testing scheduled to be performed today...m

I just heard it was testing related on the news and my cube mate stated that she read in the paper that TECO and FPL (Florida Power and Light) were doing their own Y2k System Testing today (prior to the national test). Questions, if I were the news...I would ask.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Yes, as a matter of fact I am miffed. You claim to be interested in an open-minded search for knowledge, yet your open mind seems to reject facts supplied by those who have empirical data showing the health of the utility system. There have been posts here rejecting data with not only accusations, but assumption of dishonesty, which can be only equated to an ad hominum attack.

So if open-mindedness is disproved, what is the point of this exercise? It is also claimed to be a means to judge whether and how much to prepare for disaster. Yet many posts here illustrate that many will NOT be effected by testing facts and results, and will prepare without regards to proof that would tend to limit the probability of disaster.

Now, even if the rumour mongering speculation that the explosion was somehow related to Y2k tests were true (I'll bet my bottom dollar it is not) how would this aid your decision to prepare? Honest answer is IT WOULDN"T. So how is your life enhanced by the speculation? IT ISN"T. This is simply an electronic form of voyeuristic ambulance chasing to satiate the need to validate one's fixed opinions. One person is dead, and 4 are in critical condition. Instead of trying to make these deaths be simply another justification to buy a generator and bury fuel, why don't you honor the memory of these people and maybe call the utility and offer to aid the families of these workers? There is more to this life than your Y2K preparations.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Hydrogen gas is used to cool the windings of large power turbines.

Jim

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

My apologies for Y2K Conpiracy starting. I am apart of a project management org on a Y2k project and I see alot.

My cube mate misquoted the Tampa Tribute's little side artical that said they were testing today. I read the blurb, that is all it was, and it said that they will be testing on Friday.

She is also the enterprise testing manager on this project and can concur that when you plan on doing a major nationwide test, it isn't unreasonable that you might walk through your test scripts the day prior to the test. And such as the Sherrif's department stated thier was testing going on in the generator, what kind of testing would conclude he is talking about?

The Tampa Tribune has a good artical on it. I appologize in advance for posting the entire artical but the link would be dead tommorrow since this is the cover artical....

..................................

TAMPA - A numbing explosion at a Tampa Electric Co. generating plant southeast of Tampa Thursday morning killed one person, injured 50 others and rocked homes for miles around.

Four people reportedly in critical condition were airlifted from the scene shortly after the blast at 7:20 a.m. and taken to area hospitals. Rescue crews made two sweeps through the Gannon Station plant, which employs about 250 people, looking for victims.

By 10 a.m., everyone had been accounted for, company officials said.

Officials are investigating whether a hydrogen gas leak in one of the six generators at the plant near Port Sutton may have caused the explosion.

The generator that blew up was not operating and was undergoing annual routine maintenance being performed by an outside contractor.

The dead worker was identified as Johnny Bass of Jacksonville, 52, TECO officials said. Bass, who apparently worked for an outside company, was outside when the explosion ripped through the plant, sparking a small fire and blowing off panels, called transite, from the building's metal skeleton.

Officials said a piece of the siding fell on Bass.

``It picked me up about a foot and a half and blew me to the ground,'' said Robert Worley, an iron worker and welder who was outside the building when the blast occurred.

Worley said his hard hat was peppered by debris. Blood covered an injured elbow.

Of the 45 people injured, 38 were taken to five area hospitals. No one could say early Thursday how many were independent contractors or TECO employees.

``Our major focus right now is to make sure our employees and their families are cared for,'' said Girard Anderson, chairman and chief executive officer of TECO. ``There is no indication that there is anything inherent in the design and construction of the plant'' that caused the accident.

Steve Jenkins, a TECO spokesman, said investigators are looking into the possibility that hydrogen gas leaked and exploded.

Hydrogen is a colorless, odorless gas - and the most abundant and lightest element in the universe. It also is highly volatile.

NASA uses hydrogen mixed with oxygen as a fuel for its space shuttle engines, and experts say it must be handled with great care.

``Hydrogen has a tremendous expansion ratio, and that's why we use it in the shuttle and rockets,'' said Frank Howard, a shuttle propellant specialist at Kennedy Space Center. ``When ignited, it goes up 400 times its initial volume.''

Hydrogen often is kept in liquid form at minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit. As a gas, the slightest exposure to flame, or a certain amount of oxygen, can set it off.

``If you have a hydrogen leak, somewhere in that leak it moves into an ignition range,'' Howard said. ``And the ignition source for hydrogen can be something like static from a person's clothing. It's a dangerous substance.''

The Gannon Station is one of TECO's largest generating plant, second to the Big Bend plant in south Hillsborough. It produces 1,200 megawatts of energy and provides about a third of the company's total electrical output.

The generator that exploded produced 375 megawatts. The five remaining generators were shut down following the blast.

TECO serves about 550,000 customers in the region.

Hillsborough County Sheriff Cal Henderson said that when rescue workers arrived, the air was filled with asbestos. Workers were soon issued masks. .............................

MB, signing off.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

art&science wrote:

> Yet many posts here illustrate that > many will NOT be effected by testing facts and results, and will > prepare without regards to proof that would tend to limit the > probability of disaster.

You've just hit the nail on the head. Words like "tend" and "probability" raise a red flag in my head when we're talking about the grid.

I haven't seen any "proof" that Y2K will not be a disaster, nor will I. I also haven't seen any proof that it will be one. Nor will I. Insurance is not something you buy only when there's a 20% chance of an accident. You buy it if there's a 1% chance, or even a 0.01% chance. I think the probability of the grid going down after Y2K is higher than 1%, so I'm willing to spend a fair amount of money & time buying insurance against that.

I don't understand why people think that is being extreme. I think it is simply looking at the odds, and being cautious. The only reason I even consider getting on a plane is because their safety record is so good. After Y2K, they'll have to build an entirely new safety record before I'll get on a plane again. This is something where I have a choice. With electricity, I don't have a choice. I can't decide to eliminate the risk of the grid going down by not "getting on the plane". I can, however, reduce the risk by preparing.

Jon

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

art, i understand your angst and i feel that you are reporting your honest opinion on the electrical industry-as you perceive it. however, all electrical plants are not created equally...nor are their owners, managers, project managers, programmers, or operators.

as many of us are 'laypeople' regarding the electrical industry i would like you to engage in a small excercise so that you may determine why we respond in the way that we do. i want you to walk a mile in our shoes.

for the purpose of this excercise i would like you to remove the electrical industry from the y2k problem, just for the moment.

how do you regard the state of preparedness at the federal level?

now...you are a layperson with no empirical data.

we know that they are purporting to have 72,000 systems out of which they have determined 9,000 to be 'mission critical.' after many unsuccessful attempts to achieve compliancy with the afore mentioned 9,000 and the repeated bad grades they received from the senate committee monitoring their progress, they have systematically reduced the number of systems they 'deem' mission critical. we are now down to 6,200 or there abouts.

the result...their level of accomplishment rose dramatically.

we know that the dod and the faa have lied repeatedly and have been called 'on the carpet' regarding their inability to report the data in a more forthcoming fashion, and yet the spin goes on. they are touting their success and 'near' completion.

now, do you believe what they are telling you or do you question their data? do you feel that they are prepared? what empirical data do you require to make a valid determination on their state of preparedness?

now, let us factor the electrical back into the equation. in order to function properly we need telecommunications up and running and we need an uninterrupted supply of fuel.

we hear bad news regarding the oil delivery and the information coming from the telecommunication industry is schizophrenic.

who the hell are we to believe?

this is not a personal attack on you or the electrical industry but an attempt to determine just how bad it is going to be. the same lack of insider information that you experience regarding the status at the federal level is where we stand with all industries outside of our own particular areas of expertise.

this does not mean that we, as intelligent and educated individuals are incapable of determining the overall state of affairs. my powers of deduction are not limited by my inability to perform the more rudimentary tasks involved in the functioning of a particular technology.

i happen to know that the health care industry[hospitals, doctors, rehab centers] is in deep yogurt. my banker bought a generator and he is stockpiling food and other necessary items, and yet, the financial institutions are ahead of everyone else.

how will i use the information that i glean? it will determine if i need to do more or i can start to relax a bit in my attempt to prepare.

many of us have a tendency to develop belief systems or beliefs that we defend to the death as though our very lives are at stake. this ranges from things as 'heady' as religious/philosophical sytems to something as inconsequential as the best team in the NFL.

do not take this situation personally...we need electricity in an uninterrupted flow in order to muddle through this. you can expect more heated discussion...m

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

A previous post:

"Hydrogen gas is used to cool the windings of large power turbines.

Jim

-- Jim Lynes (james.lynes@disney.com), April 08, 1999."

As far as I know, hydrogen is one of the most flammable and explosive gasses around (does the name Hindenburg ring a bell?). Also, as far as I know, the windings of a generator produce a helluva lot of heat.

How about an explanation from Rick, or someone else (maybe you, Jim Lynes?) who really knows how these things are constructed and why hydrogen would be used instead of (as another poster suggested) nitrogen, which is not explosive as a gas?

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Hardliner,

Jims post was absolutely accurate. Yes.. you are correct as well, hydrogen is one of the most flammable gases around. in the right mixture with oxygen. Forgive me for not remembering the precise ratio but I believe its about 70/30 or near there. Typically, during a scheduled shutdown for overhaul, hydrogen is purged from a generator with heavier gases such as carbon dioxide to vent hydrogen to the atmosphere before opening the generator. For long term storage, an inert gas such as nitrogen may be used under pressure. Hydrogen has been used quite safely in generators for cooling for many years now.

What happened in Tampa? I would not speculate at this point but I dont think it was Y2k related. Lets just wait and see and in the meantime say a few prayers for those that were injured .. what do you say!

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Hardliner:

This has absolutely nothing to do with this conversation but: The Hindenburg started burning because of the coating on the outside of the blimp. It was coated with something equivelant to the fuel we use to launch rockets. They assume that a small spark from the atmosphere set it off. If the Hydrogen had started it, the blimp would have exploded outward. But if you watch footage, you can see the skin burning off. I'm sure the Hydrogen helped after though.

Anyway, I shall digress now...

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

John T.,

Thank you. I am astonished, but I've known stranger things. . . Can you explain why hydrogen is used instead of something else?

As for the prayers; an excellent thought.

BTW, as I re-read my original question, it occured to me that it may have sounded like I didn't believe Jim. I assure you all that it was a sincere question and I was asking for confirmation.

Sean,

Thanks for the details about the Hindenburg. I hadn't know that about the skin, but my reference was simply meant to associate hydrogen with an explosion and fire.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Jeez, and they had many safe flights before the Hindenburg too! How can they use hydrogen in an environment like this? You know, sparks and stuff! There's got to be a better way I would think.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Hardliner,

While I have been in this industry for 31 years now, I have been out of the generation end for about 20 of those years so I am a bit rusty here. Forgive me but I believe hydrogen gas is used primarily for its cooling characteristics, low density and very low cost. Also, because of its low density, I believe it creates less windage in the generator windings as other denser gases would.

While Germany may have gladly used Helium in the Hindenburg, it seems the US controlled the bulk of the available helium and refused to sell it to Germany at the time. Regardless, hydrogen maintained in a pure atmosphere is considered safe. Dont they use a hydrogen component in the large tank of the Space Shuttle. Talk about sparks!!!

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

With you all the way Art, there is very little reason to assume this accident had anything to do with Y2k so why don't you all wait and see. Plus if it was Y2k and it caused an accident, I believe there was no outage caused, I guess someone will write back and say what if all the power plants explode. Art my friend be patient old son because it will only get worse and you believe that everything that goes wrong next year will be Y2k's fault. I certainly appreciate your thoughts on the families of the workers, my sympathy is with them, and even more so if it was Y2k and I am wrong. May their god bless them. Graham.

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

More bad news for Florida. Keep in mind that this sun-sentinel story was written before todays plant explosion in Tampa.

When the utilities detected the shortages, they bought extra power. They also launched their standard power conservation plans, such as temporarily shutting off power to certain industrial users with generators and certain residences that have agreed to do without power temporarily in times of shortages. Utilities also worked harder to increase production at the plants that were having problems.

Because of this, the state was able to avert blackouts, said Ken Wiley, the reliability council's executive director. But if the situation had worsened, there could have been blackouts and the state would have had to declare what's called a capacity emergency, officials said.

"We came real close yesterday to rolling blackouts," said Bob Trapp, assistant director of the Electric and Gas Division at the Public Service Commission, the state's utility regulatory agency. "Fortunately, everything held together."

Trapp said the state might not be as fortunate this summer, however, if the hot weather continues. The state has been allowing its generating reserves to fall below historic levels, leaving less of a cushion in times of hot weather or unforeseen problems with the plants.

"If we have a large number of unplanned outages during high-temperature periods, we could be in trouble," he said. "I'd feel more comfortable if we were going to have a mild summer."

-- Anonymous, April 08, 1999

Hydrogen gas has the best heat transport propertes of any gas (because of its lowest molecular weight: 2, Helium is 4). I'd imagine this is why it's used. Like any other inflammable gas, it can't explode unless it gets mixed with oxygen or air in the right (wrong?) proportions, which requires a leak or gross incompetence.

-- Anonymous, April 09, 1999

While this particular explosion may indeed be unrelated to y2k or y2k testing, it seems very strange that since approximately last Christmas we have had power plants blow up in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, California, and now Tampa and most companies had indicated that they would be y2k ready 31 Dec 98. And don't forget the San Francisco black out in Oct 98.

We have been building power plants for 100 years, so it is not an exotic technology. What the hell is going on? Does anyone have any idea. I can't remember any previous explosions at all, though I haven't paid much attention over the years. But to have a power plant a month blow up in this country, I think is certainly not normal.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 1999

Good question. Now for an even better question. If, as it is so vigorously asserted, we have SEVERE problems with the oil and gas supplies, why DON'T we see a corresponding level of explosions at oil rigs, and gas/oil refineries? If the rail system is going to fail, why is there no corresponding increase in train de-railments at switches? How about EMS systems - is anyone out there experiencing a corresponding level of late, improper, or failed EMS dispatches? And the supposed embedded chip problem is auto engines - could this be the cause of highway accidents?

These unfortunate events are not Y2K related. They are probably totally unrelated, but if there is a common cause/effect relationship it would probably be due the downsizing and budget cuts due to de-regulation. This is the price you will pay for a lower electric bill from a "lean and mean" utility organization. PLEASE NOTE: this is speculative, my origina assertion stands - these are unrelated unfortunate accidents.

-- Anonymous, April 10, 1999

Except for the fact that refineries are blowing up all over. Two in Wa state, 2 in Calif, 1 in Fl that I can think of recently.

Got a bucket of sand?

-- Anonymous, April 10, 1999

Taz,

It is difficult to imagine that those who work around petroleum products on a daily basis would ever experience an explosion. Are you saying that these events never occured in the 40's, 50's, 60's, or 70's in the pre-embedded chip, pre-y2K era? Or are you asserting that there is an increase in the frequency in these occurrances that displays a cause-effect relationship with Y2K? If there is a cause-effect relationship, why do you suppose there aren't multiple, simultaneous occurances nationwide? And by all means, provide the dates that these events occurred, and explain how they caused an embedded chip related explosion - maybe I need to add some dates to my test routine.

And save your sand. I think you can use it for kitty-litter after Y2K. Or maybe dye it an assortment of decorative colors to enhance the landscape around the modern art sculptures created from unused portable generators

-- Anonymous, April 10, 1999

Would it be safe to say that

- increased demand for petroleum products,

- some (many?) refinery workers are graduates of today's school systems, which have produced a generation with one of the highest rates of functional illiteracy in our history, and the world, and

- aging refineries and equipment

have all contributed to an aggregate increase in refinery explosions in the last 50 years?

-- Anonymous, April 11, 1999

If it's the red truck syndrome, then they sure keep pulling into generator stations and refineries lately. I wonder if OSHA safety reports track such explosions over time? Based on such statistics it could be seen what the trend is but not necessarily the root cause. Could be old equipment, bad training, budget cuts, Y2K testing. Who knows. The point is there are systematic failures happening at a point in time that we anticipate seeing more and more things go wrong. And this is not similar to bad weather blackouts. These are systematic and institutional failures that are causing these explosions and I suspect that the effects will be more long lasting. xBob highlights the point. Florida is now weakened by this explosion because of an historic decline in reserve power. What happens if even one more plant goes off line, again, for whatever reason. Of course, it is a tragedy that people were killed and injured. It will be an even greater tragedy if grandpa and grandma die because they have no power this summer. The root cause to them is irrelevant and they have a lot less control over the problem than the utility workers.

-- Anonymous, April 11, 1999

I have to understand why some people are getting paranoid about this stuff. My friend lives outside of San Fran, and he just told me about a huge billboard he saw, put out by the electric company, refering to Y2K:

PREPARE -- IT'S WORTH THE ENERGY

Whether or not these recent shutdowns and explosions have anything to do with Y2K, it has to be obvious _why_ people might be looking at that possibility. I think it's worth it for us to ask these questions.

And to be honest, if I found at that some of these events _were_ Y2K related, it _would_ change how I am preparing. A lot more solar-cells and deep cycle batteries, for one. ;)

-- Anonymous, April 11, 1999

I know the issue of embedded chips has been discussed elsewhere on this site. As a laymen that has read Paula Gordon's report at http://www.gwu.edu/~y2k/keypeople/gordon; Bruce Beach's Reports at http://www.webpal.org/Gas.htm and http://www.webpal.org/REPORT.htm; and between the lines of the DOD's seemingly corroborating presentation at http://www2.army.mil/army-y2k/y2kelectric90224/ sld001.htm, I am suggesting that those of you who perform or supervise testing and/or preventive maintenance (in-house or subcontracted) consider the upstream influences of embedded chips on the proposed task....your lives may well be at risk in ways that you haven't considered.

Mr. Beach's Secondary Clock Report (not the Oscillator; not the RTC) adds another variable to testing and PMI's that will apparently increase the risk of a process failure at an increasing rate over at least the next 5-10 years. I am not clear on how arbitrary the dates were (are?) set on these secondary clocks; the preference, if any, of date utilization, eg. 1980; the expected longevity of associated backup batteries (lithium or otherwise)....I'm still looking into these matters.

One possible problem that the secondary clock issue poses as presented is that there may be chips with secondary clocks that were arbitrarily set at 99 when first energized. Why not?

If such a chip were installed in say 1985...it may have faulted within one year as it rolled over to 00. Why not? You would never know it as long as it was energized internally and/or externally. Now say the battery backup failed yesterday. For example, I'm told that the CMOS batteries in older PC's lasted 5-10 years......whatever. I would expect that any such backup battery would last considerably longer for something designed to control an industrial process. I'm looking into it. Anyway, here you are conducting routine testing on equipment or processes downstream from the "failed" embedded chip. Everything is routine, because the chip has not been de-energized since its battery failed. Now you isolate circuitry to pull routine maintenance on some equipment. The isolation originates upstream from the failed chip. The chip fails and cannot be reset when the unsuspecting employee re-energizes the subject circuitry. Maybe fault indicators will permit you to remove and replace the chip after experiencing only minor problems.....maybe the consequences will be grave and immediate. Just a hypothesis from a layman. Take care of yourselves, you will never be needed more than after the Champagne corks pop. My Champagne is beginning to taste more like vinegar every day.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 1999

I've been away for a couple of weeks so I'm just now catching up on reading the forum news. xBob asked about the possible reasons for the recent preponderance of explosions at power plants. The first two or three times I read of explosions, I gauged them to be simply very unfortunate accidents and did not feel the number was outside the norm of random coincidence. Now I, too, have reached the point where I must consider the number of these explosions within such a small time frame to be above the probability norm.

Art has put forth two possible explanations, the first being unrelated coincidence and the second being "downsizing and budget cuts due to de-regulation", the implication of which is that less money and a smaller work force are putting an increased burden on maintainance. There are two more possibilities, the first of which is sabotage. I discount this one since I believe any hint of this would be difficult to keep from the media. The other possibility corresponds in a way with Art's downsizing surmisal, and while it does not indicate any Y2K failures per se, it does involve the Year 2000 problem.

From the SEC utility filings I've read, and various other audits, web sites and utility statements, it appears the vast majority of Y2K project work is being done by in-house staff. Some companies have hired consulting firms to supplement their work force, but in the main, regular employees have been assigned remediation work of various kinds. I know that in manufacturing companies this is also true.

Since I am very doubtful that any business had employees who were just sitting around not having much to do, this means that either their prior work load was abandoned when they were assigned to a Y2K project, or that Year 2000 work was added to their normal work load. Since I personally know manufacturing people for which the second case of a double work load applies, I tend to believe this situation is to be found in many other areas, too. I also know IT people who are already stressed to the max because they could barely keep up with maintaining systems in good working order before they were assigned Y2K remediation on top of all the rest. Downsizing the work force has also put increased burdens on non-IT maintenance workers, and their normal schedules may well be interrupted by the replacement/installation of compliant equipment or testing procedures. Remember a few weeks ago there was a post about the Senate beginning an investigation into the amount of overtime hours nuclear plant employees were having to work, because they'd received so many complaints about that?

There is also the scheduled outages situation to be factored into this scenario. All utilities have regularly scheduled outages in which to perform necessary maintenance, safety inspections, upgrade of equipment, etc. These outage times are geared for the known normal work load associated with the maintenance. Adding Year 2000 work puts an extra burden on those doing the regular things which need to be accomplished in a pre-set time frame. The stress of extra work above the norm, longer hours, working faster, and deadline pressure will take a toll on an employee's efficiency, alertness, and stamina. I don't find it illogical to assume that mistakes might be made, or a problem a normally alert employee would notice might be overlooked, or that shortcuts might be taken, or any variation of these combined.

I am reminded of a comment one employee made who was assigned a remediation job on top of her regular work. "I can barely keep up with what I have to do as it is. They don't pay me enough to do this other crap, too. Even if they did, there's not enough time in the day to do it all." In that specific case, the lady chose to put the Y2K work on the back burner if or until she could "get to it". Others may choose different priorities, or bust their butts trying to do it all. The fact remains that downsizing, budget cuts, and a double work load (plus drills, extra training, contingency plans) is very likely to somehow have a negative impact on normal operations. I find this situation to be the most plausible explanation for what might have either caused or contributed to the accidents.

-- Anonymous, April 20, 1999

Bonnie

I saw your comments on the current rash of explosions and as I've thought a bit about this to thought I'd share my thoughts with you.

I too have noticed about one explosion a month amongst the power utilities. And there's a slightly higher number amongst refineries.

What I think is stimulating these explosions is that these systems, which have been running fine for many years and are basically stable, have become unstable. As the companies are going through testing and remediating, they are pully components out and inspecting them. This to my mind is the crux of the problem.

A lot of these process factories are precission complexes with variables that must function within tight tolerance ranges. As components are taken out and replaced these fine tolerances are violated.

Sort of like a clock with complex internal moving parts, it's easy enough to remove one part, examine it and return it to it's former position. You then move along to the next component to continue the process on the rest of the parts. One cog a millisecond out of place can jam up the whole works.

Now if this component is not re-established exactly into it's former position, running exactly the same as before, then it could perhaps loose it's 100% stability - the stability that has allowed it to run for many years without a problem.

Lets say it degrades its stability by 2%. And lets say that of the many components that are removed and returned, that maybe 5% of these items have a reduced stability factor.

We are now at the point that the overall stability of the whole complex has been fractured. All of the components that have been checked have been found to be fine and all have been returned to their former jobs but we now have a plant which is no longer stable.

Please accept that these are just my rambling thoughts and I have no proof and examples to back up my theory.

I just have the belief that on an overall basis the integrity of these systems have been violated, because of all the testing and probing.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 1999

Nick, your thoughts seem very logical to me; thanks for sharing them! While it's doubtful the exact causes of the explosions will ever be determined (by its very nature an explosion pretty much wipes out any detailed evidence) I do think it's very likely there are cause and effect issues with Y2K remediation efforts which may have negative consequences outside of any actual date failures themselves. I would agree that the variables you mentioned should certainly not be discounted and may well have an impact, both now and in future. Not only does the Year 2000 date problem involve myriad interconnections, but it would appear that fixing it might have an interconnected problem potential of it's own. I sincerely hope we are both wrong in our surmisals; the number of injuries and deaths thus far have made me very sad, whatever the cause, and I would hate to see any further accidents costing lives and injuring people. But I cannot logically discount the possibility, either.

-- Anonymous, April 21, 1999