a taste of what's to come

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Electric Utilities and Y2K : One Thread

this is what i was attempting to convey regarding the nukes... something will always come 'from out of the blue,' something that was not written in a nerc report or even imagined as a potential problem.

three quarters of these devices worked -- what happened to the rest of them?... they probably did 'type testing.'

this is our 'dress rehersal rag.'

100,000 still powerless in meter crisis

link

Thousands of London Electricity's pre-paying customers have been left without hot water, light, or cooked food for days, as a plan to save them from the millennium bug goes "horribly wrong".

They dare not even sleep for fear they miss a knock at the door from an engineer coming to fix the problem with their Powerkey meters, because they have been warned that if they do it could be 24 hours before help arrives again.

A London Electricity spokeswoman admitted: "It's all gone horribly wrong in London, due to technical problems with a piece of equipment which occurred at the weekend."

Around 400,000 customers have been told to change their Powerkeys in order to keep their meters working when the new year begins. Unfortunately, a problem with the new keys corrupts the meters in 25 per cent of cases and the customer is left without power.

Theatre stage manager Charles Lloyd,who lives near Elephant and Castle said: "We've got #1.46 left on the meter but when that goes we won't have any supply. For the time being we're not going to use the cooker or washing machine. I went to change the key so the meter could be adapted, but when I got home it did not give me any credit and it's corrupted now.

"We've been told it could be two, three or four days before anyone can get round to fix it. It's just mucking people about. It's a total cock up."

Grandmother Susan Ilyas was without power for 40 hours. It was eventually switched back on during a five-minute visit from an engineer.

Sales adviser for the Body Shop, Mrs Ilyas, who lives in Paddington Green, said: "I was told someone would be round in 24 hours but they weren't.

"I had no sleep waiting for someone, because I was told that if I missed them then it would be another 24 hours before they came round to fix it. I was too scared to go to bed. I have had to have time off work because I have been so tired.

"We had no hot water and weren't able to have baths or wash clothes. It takes ages to get through to the hotline number and when you do nobody seems to know what they are doing."

She also complained of rudeness by people on the hotline. She claimed that when she pointed out to an operator that people on ventilators or home dialysis need electricity to live, the voice on the other end of the line allegedly told her: "Well, they'll be dead then."

Father-of-three Paul Cavender, aged 37, is demanding compensation after being without power for 37 hours. He said: "We couldn't even cook or have the hot water on. Everything we've got is electric. I reckon we've lost #200 in food that was frozen not to mention having to eat out, and buy candles and torches.

"London Electricity told everyone to go out and change their keys, so this is not a problem that has been sparked by the customer. It is entirely their fault."

The spokeswoman said London Electricity was doing its best to sort the problems out and that compensation would be available to aggrieved customers.

She said: "We have still got to work out the exact cause of the problem. Our guys are working till midnight in an effort to sort the problems out. I can only apologise if staff have been rude to customers, it has been stressful."

) Associated Newspapers Ltd., 05 August 1999 Terms and Conditions This Is London



-- Anonymous, August 06, 1999

Answers

Wow

-- Anonymous, August 06, 1999

IF this situation had happened to me, I could have shrugged and said, "No problem, my preparations cover this sort of eventuality."

That's the point, folks. No matter how you slice it, no matter what assurances you get, there's not ONE government or infrastructure industry who does not admit that Y2K = INCREASED RISK.

-- Anonymous, August 06, 1999


that's great bonnie, i am glad you are prepared, so am i... what about the 260 million other people in this country?

how many of them are prepared?

-- Anonymous, August 06, 1999


My son lives in London. He thinks I am nuts. How did I suddenly get so dumb? I hope he is not one of the households without electricity. He has a wife and a one year old son. My heart is heavy because he will not understand the potential seriousness of this situation. He is brilliant, was a MENSA member. I hope he wakes up. I will send an e-mail and see if it gets to him.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999

oh, marcella, i'm so sorry. maybe this incident will shake him up enough to realize that mumsy still does know what is going on out there in the world.

a snafu this visible has the likelihood of causing many, who did not view the problem as serious, to take a much harder look at the issue.

if this type of situation were to occur in the states... one can only wonder what type of 'cause' it would be attributed to... we are much better at inventing excuses than facing reality.

one thing that i have always admired about the brits was their respect and appreciation for individuality and eccentricity. in america we go on at great length about the freedom to choose and do as we please, but, we then reward those that think outside of the box as a threat that must somehow be contained... as though it threatens our very existence.

we are trained in our schools not to think for ourselves and not to create waves... we are about to find out how far that particular way of viewing the universe has damaged our ability to perceive a very real threat to our existence.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999



Right on marianne. You said:

"this is what i was attempting to convey regarding the nukes... something will always come 'from out of the blue,' something that was not written in a nerc report or even imagined as a potential problem"

In the incident of near melt melt down on the Ohio nuclear reactor which was disconnected from external power, the 2nd and last emergency diesel generator shut down because of a faulty relay after only 41 hours. No y2k check would have solved this problem.

And they figured out how to stop the protests after Vietnam, dumb down the education system and grow poorly educated sheeple.

Marcella. You better hope your son was one of the ones who lost power in London. Maybe it will open his eyes. It's a cheap price to pay.

xBob

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999


Marcella,

I fogot one thing. Entergy, my power company, who I have not been really imporessed in their y2k saviness, owned the London Utilities and the Sidney Austrailia Utilities companies before, providing water, power, gas, etc. They sold them off recently, I think this past fall, generally not more than a year ago anyway, and when y2k since I have been working on y2k, 2 years.

If that is useful or not, I don't know, but it is interesting.

xBob

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999


xBob, Marianne, so far as I know, Entergy is still the company for a large portion of London. I remember thinking how strange it is that my co-op buys a large part of their power from Entergy and my son's company in London is Entergy.

I read the original post here late last night. This morning I thought as you, xBob, that I hope his house does not have electricity.

Also, where is FactFinder & Co. explaining there is no problem with electricity? Tell that to Londoners.

I also remember Kostinen saying several months ago that the roll-over would be on a long week-end so there would be three days to fix any problems. I thought that was poppy-cock at the time and I still do. The company in London hasn't fixed the problem in three days; they still don't know why this system failed. Kostinen is building a 40 million dollar bunker to operate from Oct. through at least next June. That is 9 months. He suggests we prepare for 1-3 days. Is there something wrong with this picture?

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999


LOL, this problem was caused by those Y2k FIXES that you guys insist upon, not a y2k bug. Look, I have never claimed that there would be no SOFTWARE bugs that will cause problems - there have been software bugs before, there will be as long as the beast exists. I also have never said that there would not be any problems due to Y2k testing and fixes, I have said the exact opposite. I have also NEVER said that y2k bugs could cause no problems.

Once more:

There will be no significant effect on power generation and delivery during the rollover to Jan.1, 1999.

And must you tie EVERYTHING to Nukes, marianne? The article had nothing to do with them :) Regards,

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999


And by the way, there will also be no significant effect on power generation and delivery during the rollover to Jan.1, 2000.

It's late, lol!

Regards,

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999



By the way, Two winters ago we had an ice storm and lost power at hundreds of thousands of homes and business's, and thousands were without power for days - we did not have power for a week. I had not stocked up on food, I had not bought a generator. It was one big inconvience, but if this is the worst thing that life ever throws at me I'm in pretty good shape. A power outage is not Armegeddon, and y2k won't even be a factor.

You guys need to accept the facts. When the NERC %Complete figures looked bad, Bonnie and Co ate up the NERC reports like doomer candy. Now that the figures look GREAT, those bastards are lying! LOL!

These are the facts, whether you accept them or not - the NERC report is the most detailed report available, much better than any government fluff. The exceptions are even listed, just not the company names (and yes, it is resonable to grant anonymity to get the facts, you guys do it all the time, and so does every newspaper in the country).

The paranoia and conspiracy theories are hilarious, but the group hysteria you guys are engaging in is not healthy. Accept the facts. Get over the Denial. We are good to go, the Y2K "Movement" is in its death throws. Even Lane is now saying every date is a "red herring"...he's even starting to hedge on Jan. 1, 2000!

Regards,

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999


FactFinder,

Gosh, three posts in a row. Something got under your saddle here, huh? Just one question. It is Saturday, a party time for some, after work of course. Have you been partying a little bit? Honest now.

-- Anonymous, August 07, 1999


FactFinder,

Thank you for your response. It really gives me great comfort to know that thee will be no problem caused by y2k systemic bugs, and that all we have to fear are the y2k fixes, which if they take down the grid cannot be balmed on y2k.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 1999


FactFinder, you said,"this problem was caused by those y2k fixes that you guys insist upon, not a y2k bug."

By Jove, I think I've got it! You will not freeze to death from a y2k bug, but you could freeze to death from a y2k fix! Yes, I've got it!

-- Anonymous, August 08, 1999


So, what's that old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"? Well, a lot of the stuff being *fixed* right now, is not actually *broke* right now, in fact it is running fine. Not only running fine, but when the new fix malfunctions, they go back to the old system real fast to keep things running. That's in cases where the Y2k fix screwed up. I know I gotta be missing something here. It just seems all too simple. Don't mess with it, it's working fine, and the fixes keep screwing it up. That's the message? That's it?

-- Anonymous, August 08, 1999


Gordon, No partying, but just in a spirited mood. Seriously, the last several days almost all of the posts here charged NERC or some orgainization with lying, covering up, hiding, etc. I thought I would throw out a different opinion, and spice it up enough to at least make you think.

Regarding y2k fixes, my experience has been that the majority of software y2k problems and the overwhelming majority of embedded system y2k problems are minor in nature, therefore the fix can sometimes cause more severe problems than the y2k bug would have given. In general:

1. Most fixes go pretty well without signficant problems. 2. In most cases where software is replaced or a signficant upgrade is installed, there is an overall improvement, so at least something has been gained.

3. Complete replacements/upgrades to new software sometimes fix the y2k problem but bring about new non-y2k bugs. In some of these cases, the cure is worse than the disease. For example, a software upgrade to fix a minor y2k problem was so user "unfriendly", the users elected to go back to the original software with adminstrative controls on date usage. The old software is considered y2k "Ready" with the adminstrative controls.

4. Some y2k bugs in software are severe in effect, and a fix is required for proper functioning in the year 2000. In these cases, the fix is always worth the trade for a different set of bugs ;)

Regards,

-- Anonymous, August 08, 1999


There was no "near meltdown" in Ohio.

-- Anonymous, August 08, 1999

There was no "near meltdown" in Ohio.

-- Fargus (justiua@ref.net), August 08, 1999.

Fergus, if you know something more, please elaborate. It was my understanding that after only 41 hours there was no commercial power, both backup diesel generators were down, and the temperature of the cooling ponds was rising rapidly and entereing evaporation stage when the external commecial power was reconnected. Ho much longer to go with no external power and no EDG's, please?

-- Anonymous, August 09, 1999


Moderation questions? read the FAQ