Subject:	Trashing The Idiotic "Y2K Will Be Like Three Day Storm"
Date:	1999/06/17
Author:	Paul Milne <fedinfo@halifax.com>
	Posting History

Y2K: Not Like an Ice Storm by Curt Bury  6/17/99 Author: Curt Bury     Y2K is being compared to natural disasters such as ice storms and hurricanes for purposes of developing family and community preparedness. While this is a useful metaphor to use for planning the types of preparedness that should be considered, it is not a good predictor of the length or degree of the disruptions that can occur. This is particularly true where a full cycle of assessment, remediation and testing has not been used before Jan. 1, 2000.     Because emergency services teams such as FEMA, the Red Cross, public utility power line repair teams, etc., are able to react quickly to natural emergencies and rapidly reestablish normal operations, linking Y2K problems with natural phenomena seems to justify: "Well just wait until something happens, then well know exactly what and where the problem is, and our technicians will repair it quickly.     In some cases, although the company or government unit realizes that Y2K-related disruptions can affect them, it does not believe its worthwhile or may lack the resources needed to assess, remediate and test their applications and/or embedded chip processes. Instead, they deliberately take what they believe is a more economical approach and to simply wait and see what if anything breaks - and then to fix it. For example many small county governments are opting not to spend scarce money now to try to find and fix errors in advance. They hope that errors found after Jan. 1 will be few and easy to fix.     More likely, the company or government unit is unaware of or in denial about the potential magnitude of the Y2K problem or perhaps they do not believe it will significantly affect them. To the extent that they may have looked at this risk, they may be conditioned by the assumption that fixing the problem is likely to be easy and quick. However, if they do encounter Y2K problems, they will then be in an unplanned Y2K "find/fix/recover situation.   Preparing For Y2K Disruptions The assumption behind this type of approach is that Y2K problems are very much like problems already familiar to us, such as ice storms, hurricanes, and floods. In fact, the public is often advised to prepare for Y2K "just like an ice storm, which helps underscore the assumption that the length of the disruption, and the recovery period would likely be measured in just a few days. Even ice storms and other natural disasters can disrupt communities for more than three days. It is easy to forget the Southeast Virginia ice storm disruption of seven days during Christmas, 1998, or the one in the Montreal area that lasted for more than five weeks the previous winter, not to mention the economic fallout caused by the storms.     In both of these cases, repair crews from outside of the area provided added assistance, but if Y2K disruptions are simultaneous or widespread, help from neighboring communities may be unavailable. Finally, while repair crews for natural disasters are trained to make those specific repairs, the Y2K repair skills are completely different, and very scarce.     There are, in fact, fundamental differences between natural disasters and potential Y2K disruptions. They will manifest themselves in very different "find, fix and recovery" scenarios, both as to difficulty and length. The recognition of these differences is why most of us with long computer experience often are more pessimistic than other Y2K planners without this technical background who began studying this subject more recently.   Preparing for Natural Disasters Most natural disasters are predicted by weather bureaus in advance with a reasonable degree of accuracy. These predictions generally cover a geographical area, including when, where and to what degree they will strike, so that households and emergency teams can start specific preparations. Specific Y2K disruptions, on the other hand, will be very difficult to predict, since they may be randomly distributed or even of a cascading nature.     Natural disasters, almost without exception, also have "natural" endings: * An ice storm ends sooner or later and the ice melts.   * A hurricane or tornado sooner or later blows itself out.   * Flood water levels sooner or later recede.   Y2K problems have no natural ending and will continue to exist until they are found and fixed, or bypassed by knowledgeable technicians.   The average citizen can also help in mitigating natural disasters. He can pick up a shovel and help remove snow. He can batten his hatches for a hurricane or evacuate if necessary. He can help build dikes to hold back an oncoming flood. However, unless he has specific programming skills, and, in addition, detailed knowledge of the failing application, there is almost nothing he can do to help repair Y2K problems. Further, since Y2K disruptions of varying types may occur simultaneously in many places, outside help from unaffected areas may not be readily available, - unlike geographically limited natural disasters, where other communities often can send assistance.   In addition, natural disaster causes are very visible to everyone. Y2K disruption causes, however, are completely invisible to all but the skilled computer technician, and even then, long detective work may be necessary to pinpoint the problem and then correct it. This will especially be true where disruptions are caused by malfunctioning embedded chips. Some of these may be inaccessible and must be bypassed. Others may no longer be available from the manufacturer, or there may not be a Y2K compliant version. Because they will be more difficult to handle when they occur, Y2K disruptions are liable to upset average citizens even more than a natural disaster, unless they are ready to cope with a variety of disruptions with "shelter at home preparedness plans.   Recovering from Disasters Finally, EMS, FEMA, Red Cross and many of the rest of us have substantial experience in recovering from the natural disasters, ridding ourselves of snow and ice, digging out after a hurricane and cleaning up after a flood or tornado. However, the Y2K recovery experience will be new to all of us, even those with long computer experience (40 years in the authors case) - we have never seen the likes of this before. We do know that programming changes are often very difficult to do quickly and accurately, and that the repair or replacement of embedded chip problems may represent an even more difficult challenge.     Further, predictions of a quick "find/fix/recovery also imply that the technicians required to do this work can be contacted, and are both willing and able to get to the workplace during the disruption. For example, if there is a significant power outage in the area, closing schools and day care centers, these key employees may choose to stay home and help their families during the emergency. Or, if they are willing to come to work, they may not be able to get there because public transportation is not running, or gas pumps may not be working to supply their cars. These concerns need to be addressed in any contingency planning.     As a result, the skills required and length of time needed to find the problem and create or obtain the fix are very different than with our natural disaster experience, although some contingency plans may be similar. It is very unlikely indeed that even just the basic problems can be fixed in only three days, as some sources have suggested, especially since cascading effects may have been set in motion. Therefore, the effects are likely to be felt for weeks or months. If one adds the potential supply chain problems, e.g. gasoline shortages because of overseas supply failures, the evidence is very strong for longer periods of erratic disruptions. As a result, predicting the dimensions of even a single Y2K malfunction much less multiple overlapping ones may be very difficult.   Contingency Planning One might argue that the "three days is just the amount of time it will take for FEMA, EMS, Red Cross, etc. to put contingency plans in place so that the basic needs of the general populace is taken care of. However, this just transfers the question of how long to prepare for to the EMS/FEMA/Red Cross planners, since they will ask how long the contingency plan will need to last. (E.g. - how much gasoline supply will they need to store to keep generators going? Should emergency shelters be opened?) An unrealistic and insupportable economic and manpower burden of supplying shelter and emergency services for the entire populace is being inadvertently placed on FEMA, the Red Cross and other such service groups. An alternative plan of preparing for "shelter at home for a period longer than the recommended 3 days is far more appropriate, and leaves community shelters available for the most vulnerable members of the community. Finally, the simultaneous nature of the possible disruptions will tax FEMA/Red Cross planning to the utmost, since they base much of their emergency on outside help from unaffected neighborhoods that, with Y2K may have to attend to their own needs.     Foregoing is a very important message to all of us who are helping plan for Y2K emergencies. There has already been significant discussion of the potential for an extended period of Y2K-related disruptions resulting from supply chain problems. However, there has been very little discussion of the differences between Y2K and natural disaster find/fix/recovery in our literature, and almost no mention that I can find in the Bennett, Horn or Koskinen, or even FEMA reports. Since there is very likely insufficient understanding of these differences at a senior executive level, this has also contributed to Y2K reports to Congress, NERC, et al, that may be inadvertently too optimistic. These concerns should be added to those already identified by Paula Gordon and others, but not detailed here, such as possible technological disasters here and abroad; potential supply line problems, particularly from suppliers overseas, emergencies requiring evacuations from contaminated areas; emergencies requiring major humanitarian and medical responses, etc. etc. Any of these can also substantially extend the period of recovery. The potential for a major, lengthy Y2K disruption exists because of the serious difficulties in the Y2K find/fix/recovery process; it is not "just like an ice storm.   I am indebted to Ed Yourdon, Paula Gordon, Lois Saboe and Steve Davis for some of the thoughts and arguments included above. - CMB   =========   That the consequences of Y2k will be far far worse than the INSIPID three day storm crapola is plain, common sense. None of which the Pollyannas have. Only complete imbeciles could fall for the three day storm nonsense.   http://www.y2ktoday.com/modules/home/default.asp?feature=true&id=1629   Paul Milne

-- a (a@a.a), June 17, 1999

Answers

Very well-written article, Paul.. must say it ranks up there with one of your best essays. Thanks, a, for posting it! :^)

-- luann (flataufm@hutchtel.net), June 17, 1999.

Paul Milne did not the article. Curt Bury did.

Paul Milne wrote:

"That the consequences of Y2k will be far far worse than the INSIPID three day storm crapola is plain, common sense. None of which the Pollyannas have. Only complete imbeciles could fall for the three day storm nonsense. http://www.y2ktoday.com/modules/home/default.asp?feature=true&id=1629 Paul Milne"

Just the facts, ma'am.

-- Sgt. Friday (weekdays@4.PM), June 18, 1999.

And the common sense.

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 18, 1999.

Great stuff! To believe the "fix on failure" propaganda, Joe Sixpack must think Y2K problems are going to be real obvious, like a tree falling on a power line, or a tornado demolishing a building. The recent sewage spill may have been "obvious" in terms of the problem, but in a real situation probably non-obvious in terms of the solution.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), June 18, 1999.

I agree with your conclusion about y2k. The sewage spill in Los Angeles was just a small reminder of things now to come.

Five years and a fat economy and we still don't have compience from 98% of the worlds Largest corporations, this will be a challenge like no other. An analogy of y2k and utilities was made comparing pilots who are use to flying airliners with computer autopilot assist having do it manually, We suppose they can do it, but they have not flown that way for over 35 years. Our Airliners,utilies,food chain systems and yes our military are not designed to run without computer assist for mission critical functions any more. This is the way things have been run these last few years, they dont have many old timers left that have the expertise to run the show on manual any more, and even if they did they have taken out most of the manual overrides out of the systems, like with Rail roads. Even if they want to run the show on manual in many cases they may not be able to anymore, they are designed out of many systems now.

What you failed to comment on is that there is all kinds of military actions now happening around the globe on a 24/7 basis. With y2k lomming around the corner,our troops may be caught behind the y2k curtain in a foreign country with little or no possibility of reinforcements soon. This brings me to this,If y2k is going to be bad,which all current evidence is pointing to that direction isnt it time to let europe handle it's own affairs,split the military security burden equally in the middle east and asia with the G10 countries and work out a plan so we dont tourch the planet. Bring at least half of our troops home so were not leaving our guard down and not leaving all of our soldiers holding the bag after jan 1. Just my thoughts. Oh yes one other thing, all mission critical embedded systems built before 1995 were built on the 2 digit standard and will have a problem handling y2k in applications that are year and time stamp sensitive unless replace or reworked. This represents billions of hard to get to systems bury underground,undersea or in space. And even when you can get to them, the original design has chips in it that need to be de-soldered to be replaced and then in many cases the replacement chips dont fit the motherboard so you have to build a piggy back and wirewrap it to fit, very time intensive rework. Fix on failure in 3 days is mission impossible, 6 months preps + nationwide y2k victoy gardens for shelter at home very possible and know our best resort.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation . com), June 18, 1999.

What makes you think that Clinton WANTS our troops home on American soil for the rollover? It would appear that perhaps he doesn't. He has the facts, same ones we do and more. What exactly IS the Commander in Chief thinking? Is he stupid? Seems pretty *slick* to me. So....what IS this administration's plan for National crisis? After all, it is *JUNE 1999*. Just wondering, as I limp off to bed....pleasant dreams!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 18, 1999.

ref ARC/FEMA We base ALL of our natural disaster recovery on outside people. the frist 3 days are for the local chapter. After 3 days, the National team arrives and the locals GO HOME to take care of their families, while the NATIONAL TEAM does the work. When we can't get a National Team, what ARE we going to do???

Chuck, Been there (Torando Outbreak 1984- Niles-Newton Falls etc.)

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), June 18, 1999.

Chuck: What is HE going to do?

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 18, 1999.

There was a time when the scientists of the world believed that the sun revolved around the earth, and the world was carried upon the back of a giant turtle. They were the geniuses of the day.

Now, we have people who no less ignorantly follow Paul Milne and his insanely huge rantings.

Anyone who believes more than 3% of what Milne says: shame on you. You're a damn fool idiot. Period. Come back to life on regular planet earth. That's where you'll be living after all this silliness is over, like it or not. Milne and his ilk will be in padded cells.

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), June 18, 1999.

Chicken Au Contraire!

The holocaust never happened. 18 Million Native americans never died because they never existed. The dinosaurs never became extinct. 1929 Never happened. Rome never fell. The tulip craze is an urban myth. Confederate (CSA) currency is still valuable. The black death is a fairy tale. The "spanish flu" is a 20th century fairy tail.

In short, I've worked with the red cross. All their manpower (during a major incident) consists of VICTIMS helping other victims. Oh sure, there's a few REAL red cross volunteers that had training, etc. Maybe one in 10 or one in 50. They are important. THE VICTIM volunteers are ESSENTIAL. Without them, NOBODY would get relife in a wide area disaster.

-- otay (spanky@lilrsacles.com), June 18, 1999.

"Anyone who believes more than 3% of what Milne says: shame on you. You're a damn fool idiot."

I must be an idiot.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), June 18, 1999.

Great post "a" Thanks!

-- R (riversoma@aol.com), June 18, 1999.

smallchick Do us all a favor please? Keep your comments of the intelligence of the people and posters to your self. Unless you can provide a sensible argument otherwise your the damm fool idiot........

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), June 18, 1999.

Well, if you believe just 2% of Milne then you're not an idiot, Chicken? But that would still put you on the sliding scale of 7-9, right?

-- sue (deco100@aol.com), June 18, 1999.

These posted words are vain.

Greater damage will follow beyond our remediation.

Then more vain words will be posted.

Y2K SUX!

-- Randolph (dinosaur@williams-net.com), June 18, 1999.