While visiting my atm machine tonite to take out a little extra cash, I started thinking about how vulnerable we have allowed are selves to become by placing so much faith and trust in electronic promises to pay by banks and insitutions.

If a belligerent nation wanted to, they can shut us down by knocking out our power grid. Most of us who keep to much faith in A.T.M.s and would be in trouble in a short amount of time.Banks will refuse to open if electricity is not availiable.

With the conflict in europe still raging with no quick end in sight,keep extra cash always handy and your gas tanks topped off above 1/2 way from now on until the crisis is resolved. Y2k is not the only danger to our critical infrastructures. Be diligent and stay on a high state of preparedness. Drill for y2k outages 1 day a week each week with the family. Prepare a checklist of emergency procedures, and have each member know the drill by heart. If bugging out becomes necessary have a well developed plan, and practice it. Stay in contact with friends that live in rural areas that would be willing to put you up for a short in the event of the unexpected happening early this year. Stay well and be watchfull, the change is underway. Stay hopefull and positive and place your trust in the Lord not in banks. God bless Y2k aware mike.

-- y2k aware mike (2yk aware mike@ conservation.com), May 13, 1999

Answers

Well stated. The power grid is the most obvious target of terrorists (external or internal). Nothing will work if "we ain't got no juice". God bless you y2kmike.

-- (allsweet@rocketmail.com), May 13, 1999.

The day after this year's State of the Union Address, Clinton was on national evening news disclosing a campaign against possible biological warfare and cyberterrorism. He specifically linked cyberterrorism as a potential threat to the utilities. One more reason why it is essentially irrelevant to me how ready my utility company thinks it will be. There are too many reasons which, cumulatively, warrant my taking responsibility for my individual well-being, just in case.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), May 13, 1999.

Not entirely true...

Banks have disaster recovery plans in place. Have for a number of years now. Many of these plans include generator power at the data center. These plans were drawn when Y2K wasn't really an issue, just natural (or unnatural) disasters. Furthermore, Banks are writing contingency plans specific to Y2K, which include loss of electricity. I know of a few banks which have opened in spite of loss of electricity: manual procedures with specific policies for w/d amounts (can't check the balances, but well, we trust you), limited hours and/or locations, security guards at banks, etc. While you can't do everything manually, you can serve your customers.

just my 2cents...

back to lurking

-- newlurker (no@no.com), May 13, 1999.

Will the vaults open if the power goes out? They may have contingency plans, but I just do not trust them.

-- winna (??@??.com), May 13, 1999.

Many of the vaults in your local hometown banks (and some larger banks) do not have any "computerized" equipment. Also, the FFIEC has specifically required financial institutions to look at ALL security devices in banks. This includes vaults, as well as alarm systems, vcr's, central station monitoring, etc. Ask your bank if they have inventoried their vaults and other security devices. They all should have, and the majority are not computerized. There are over 10,000 FDIC insured and/or regulated institutions. The majority of these are smaller banks and should have only time aware vaults (a clock that you set for 8, 12, 14 hours every night, depending on the hours of operations). And yes, they do (should) have contingency plans for those vaults which are date aware and/or computerized. This could be as simple as having a large (heavy) safe that is not in the "vault" area. Again, ask your bank for this info if you are uncomfortable with my answer. Banks are required by the FFIEC to be very forthcoming about thier Y2K program.

Hope I helped...

Back to lurking...

-- newlurker (no@no.com), May 13, 1999.