just up on csy2k, which is increasingly getting more interesting
posted by walking_crow:

[ For Educational Purposes Only ]

Background: Mill Creek, Washington, U.S. is a somewhat upscale small town (pop. 9200) on the far outskirts of the suburbs of the city of Everett (pop. ~75,000), in western Washington. Farms, large and small, within walking distance (the first of them ~10 minutes' walk).

The following is from the local weekly newspaper, the Mill Creek Enterprise, June 9, 1999. No URL available, so here it is in its entirety:

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City buying riot gear, tear gas in case Y2K nightmares come true

MILL CREEK -- The Mill Creek Police Department plans to buy riot gear and a tear gas delivery system in preparation for the year 2000.

Police chief John Klei said in a memo to the City Council that the gear will prove useful even if year 2000 computer problems and citizen unrest don't develop on Jan. 1. The shields, batons, fatigues ad other gear would also serve the city in case of the need for crowd control, Klei said.

He is still gathering cost figures for the recommendations that will be about $250 a person for 10 officers.

The department is making many other preparations for "Y2K" as well. An informal party -- without alcohol -- and a departmental meeting will be held for all officers and their families on New Year's Eve. That way if officers are then needed on the streets, they will know that their families are safe. Klei said they may encourage officers to park their RVs or camping trailers at City Hall to be prepared for a few days of housing their families.

The department has purchased 24 cots and sleeping bags for staff use. Additional purchases of non-perishable food and potable water are planned. The department is investigating whether a propane and gas supply truck can be leased.

Police have held a forum with local banks on Y2K issues and plan to meet with businesses as well. Police are working on a brochure for citizens that lists the supplies needed for a 72-hour emergency. ----------------------------------------------------------------------

. . . and some further intel. I was pulling out of the Mill Creek Post Office this afternoon. At a stop sign across the street from the Snohomish County Sheriff's Dept. South County HQ. Shift change, 4 or 5 patrol cars in the parking lot, one patrol car at the street, waiting for traffic so he could pull out. Car #1 hit his lights and siren and peeled out, headed north. Car #2 was already fired up, he followed.

Two more officers came trotting out, hurried throwing their gear into the trunks and jumping in. Officer #3 was lugging his brand shiny new riot gear. (I think 'new' is a safe assumption: stuff still had the tags hanging from it, and those riot shields are hard to mistake for anything else.) So it seems Sheriff Rick Bart and our Chief Klei have been talking.

I know many of these officers, and their leadership, and I trust them. This area has little or no underclass, and few problem people. So they have to be assessing external threats. As far as I'm concerned, it's a good example of contingency planning, and more important, prepositioning assets to execute those plans should they be needed.

I wonder where else this sort of thing is quietly happening?

Of course, if they're tied down (guarding the banks or something), or called away to assist another department, or overrun, we civilians might be next up at bat.
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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 26, 1999

Answers

Several ppl from various parts of the country have eMailed us saying they've seen their local officials preparing more in-depth than they let the general populace know.

For a long hot boring summer it seems the news is actually ever-so-slowly heating up. Thought it would be September before interest woke up at all ...

Any lurkers have similar stories?

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 26, 1999.

Do the cops/military folk doing these drills actually believe that computer bugs will cause power outages & disruptions?

....Or are they just concerned about crazed millennialists, terrorists & asorted religious wackos?

Maybe it doesn't matter but I'd love to know what's going on in their heads.... especially since anyone who's preparing (like us) might fall into the "wacko" category.

-- innocent (til@proven.guilty), June 26, 1999.

Yep -- check out the Terrorism article from MSNBC on:

Millennia Monitor, Y2K & Cycle 23... Sunspots (FAS: Federation of American Scientists)

" ... claims of coming social chaos related to the so-called Y2K bug in computer systems actually amplify the survivalist mentality innate in most Patriot belief systems. "

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-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 26, 1999.

innocent,

"We're no longer at the point of asking wherther or not there will be any power disruptions, but we are now forced to ask how severe the disruptions are going to be..." U.S. Senator Chris Dodd

The information flood-gates are open, time to prepare for "lights out"

-- BiGG (supersite@acronet.net), June 26, 1999.

Article in the Greenville, SC news today. They have approved and have sent the purchase order for Kevlar vests for all the Paramedics in Greenville County. This comes out to about $85,000. Not an insignificant chunk of change for a county with a population of 185,000. There have been no EMS personnel wounded in the line of duty here. The reporter did ask why now? Answer was "We think it's time". No further discussion allowed.

Article yesterday in the same paper. Traffic light system in Greenville is not and cannot be made compliant. Solution is to order a new main computer (to the tune of 1.4 million). City Council Chairman says he's not sure what else they will find. The connotation in the quotes in the article is that the city and county both are still in the assessment phase. (They expect delivery of the computer sometime in November).

Local sheriff's office has been practicing with portions of the SC National Guard at the airbase at Donaldson Center. Not sure WHAT they are practicing.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), June 26, 1999.

The fire department in my small town (north of Mill Creek) is making similar arrangements (preparing to feed and house the fire dept's families at the fire station for an undisclosed period of time) also. They just aren't advertising it. I learned this while taking a CERT class there a while back.

-- (nobody@nowhere.com), June 27, 1999.

Wow, Nobody, another CERT member! We really like the training & advanced classes & drills. Also find info out from instructors and other CERTs that we hear noplace else.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), June 27, 1999.