Britain is giving shipowners certain dates by which they need to be able to demonstrate their ships will operate safely:

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http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a1133LBY064reulb-19990816&qt=%22year+2000%22+bug*+glitch*+y2k&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

Britain warns shipowners over millennium bug

08:26 a.m. Aug 16, 1999 Eastern

LONDON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Britain warned shipowners on Monday that vessels calling at British ports could be detained if they have not ironed out millennium bug problems.

The Maritime and Coastguard Agency said ships' power, steering or navigational equipment could fail because of the bug, which is expected to cause electronic systems to crash because they cannot process the millennium date change.

The agency said its surveyors were already giving guidance on the millennium bug problem to ships they inspect.

From September 1, ships that have not identified equipment that could fail or taken remedial action will be recorded in a European database and be targeted for further inspection.

From November 1, ships without a millennium contingency plan, including crew members to implement it, will have to demonstrate they can operate safely.

All ships inspected before January 1, 2000 which have still not tackled the risk and which will be at sea at the turn of the millennium will be detained until they can show they will not be a threat to safety or the environment, the agency said.

Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

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-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 16, 1999

Answers

Link- sorry to mees with your thread but I've been meaning to pass this on to you.

On WAVE 3 on Mondays they have Mayors Corner or something like that. Mayor Armstrong takes calls live on air. A few weeks ago I called and asked What kind of contingency planning the city was doing to handle emergencies that might come up. I said that I thought the mayors office might be the perfect place to coordinate efforts if they were needed. The mayor said you can be sure we will have everything under control blah blah blah. Then Scott Reynolds the reporter said you can be sure if something does go wrong We'll be there to report it and I said If you are on the air. Ha Ha Ha we all laughed.

Then the Mayor turned to Scott and said "I think this Whole Y2k thing was just thought up so people could sell other people a bunch of stuff" and Scott said oh yeah we shall see. Thats reassuring isn't it?

-- Johnny (JLJTM@BELLSOUTH.NET), August 16, 1999.

Johnny,

Thanks for the info. I would be more at ease if Mayor Armstrong had said the city had appropriated x numbers of dollars to repair Y2K, and that mission-critical systems will be ready by the end of September.

I really, really hope that Louisville and Jefferson County governments are not planning to fix on failure. Unlike Indianapolis and Cincinnati, though, I haven't been able to find any evidence of a budget being appropriated to bring about compliance in city and county government.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 16, 1999.