The state director of Y2K in Texas is Shannon Porterfield, and she was in Longview, Texas Wednesday addressing the North & East Texas County Judges and Commissioners Association about Y2K.

She, of course, adheres to the party line of 72 hours of preparation, but she said something I hadn't heard before. I suspect she's clueless about this, but she said Texas "is unique in that its electric power system is mostly contained inside the state and it has only a few contacts with the national power grid. If the national grid should start blacking out, Texas could easily disconnect, she said."

Any input from the experts on this ability for the Lone Star State to "disconnect itself" from the grid?

LINK It's the fifth story down on the page.

-- Vic (Rdrunner@internetwork.net), June 10, 1999

Answers

Texas is on the 3rd of 3 grids that operate in the U.S. and Canada. It's the ERCOT grid, and includes Texas only.

AFAIK, Texas doesn't connect to the Eastern grid or the Western grid at all, so there's no reason to disconnect. If the Texas grid goes down, there's no way we can get power from the others. If the Western grid goes down, we can't help them either.

Anita

-- Anita Spooner (spoonera@msn.com), June 10, 1999.

Sorry. I meant to paste the story.

Official concerned with county Y2K preparedness

By Jerry Graham

A state official in charge of the Y2K problem said she feels Texas will survive the millennium bug with few major problems. But cities and counties will be on the front line in dealing with emergencies, and her concern is that she does not know how well local governments have prepared for the problems, Shannon Porterfield said.

Porterfield is the state director of the Y2K Project. She spoke Wednesday at a meeting of the North & East Texas County Judges and Commissioners Association about problems expected next January when a new century arrives and computers might not be able to recognize the new year.

She said she encounters panic among residents when she speaks to groups around the state. People ask her whether they need to stock up on guns and ammunition for the riots and social disorder some people are predicting, she said.

Porterfield said she did not think the problem will be that bad. Others predict electric power systems will fail. "I feel we will have power, and if there is a disruption, it will be localized, not catastrophic,'' Porterfield said.

Texas is unique in that its electric power system is mostly contained inside the state, and it has only a few contacts with the national power grid, she said. If the national grid should start blacking out, Texas could easily disconnect from the system, she said.

"The other side of that is that if we have a catastrophic failure, we are on our own,'' she said.

Many are predicting the problems will come crashing down Jan. 1, she said, but she believes most problems will occur later in January.

While some predict the unraveling of civilized society, she said she agrees with the assessment that people should prepare for an emergency of about 72 hours.

Many are preparing for months of shortages, and emergency officials need to be concerned about responding to a house fire and discovering that the homeowner had stored large amounts of gasoline in the garage, she said.

"The public is not buying that everything will be fine. People are buying gasoline, buying generators and preparing for the end of the world,'' she said.

She said 86.8 percent of the work has been completed on making the state's computers Y2K compliant, and 81.7 percent has been completed for agencies with missions considered critical, such as the Department of Public Safety.

Porterfield said all counties should have already fixed their computers. But local governments are not required to report to her office, and she does not know how many have solved the problem. If they haven't started by now,they won't be finished by Jan. 1, she said.

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-- Vic (Rdrunner@internetwork.net), June 10, 1999.

here's an old thread about it.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), June 10, 1999.

an emergency of about 72 hours.

This is getting as old as "airplanes won't fall out of the sky." Anytime you see this in an article, you know the spokesman has the White House talking papers.

-- Dog Gone (layinglow@rollover.now), June 10, 1999.