Cruise Ship Collision

Nothing to do with power or Y2k. It may not even have anything to do with GPS. But a collision in the English Channel? They have good video. The cargo ship is on fire and everything. No mention of a possible GPS connection in either the print or the TV news story.

But about 24 hours after rollover we have a Panamanian Cargo ship adrift outside shipping lanes where it is rammed by a cruise ship. If this accident is not related to the GPS rollover, it is a heck of a coincidence.

Mmmm... I bet this one hits all the Y2k forums pretty quickly.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Answers

I watched a news report which said that the two ships should have had radar which would have alterted them to each other's proximity. Also, the ships were entering a portion of the channel in which they begin sharing a lane. And, I believe the ship was on fire prior to the cruise ship striking it. Due to the extreme size of these vessels, it is most difficult to avoid a collision within a certain distance. For example, a VLCC pointed at the Island of Manhattan at full speed, would likely destroy itself completely before stopping.

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Ever heard the expression: "It's hard to turn a battleship on a dime."? It is. It is impossible to immediately affect steerage on a large ship that has some forward momentum going, no matter how far over you throw the rudder.

What does this have to do with Y2k and electric utilities? 18 months ago, the U.S. electric industry had a flank bell rung up on deregulation, to the exclusion of nearly everything else. Personnel were being axed in a wholesale manner. Maintenance budgets were being slashed. Employee morale was at rock bottom, as *every* employee waited to see if they were the next to be "zero based". There was almost no executive focus on Y2k.

Flash forward 18 months: 3200 + (or 7800 +, depending on what figures you're looking at) battleships suddenly saw a hazard in the waterway, and every one of them ordered a "back emergency" bell and full right rudder. And according to the pronouncements of NERC, EEI, DOE, and the Y2k Council: Every one of those "ships" have captains of equal skill, with ships equally limber, and crews equally dedicated; and all are now on course to avoid the hazard.

To quote Bill Cosby from one of his more famous routines: "Riiiigggghht."

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

How do you know you've lived and breathed Y2K for months?

You come in from a dinner with friends and turn the television on to hear about a shipping collision in the Med. When the announcer says, "No one has been able to come up with an explanation as to why, with modern technology, this accident could have happened," you yell at the screen, "How about a GPS failure!"

I read this thread to my husband and he contributed another well known (to we "mature" individuals) quote from a Bill Cosby routine. He quickly changed one word to fit Rick's analogy and said,

"Hope the ship don't crash!"

-- Anonymous, August 24, 1999

Ok, while we are talking ships and GPS and Bill Cosby let me throw this out.........

At this point, August 1999, what effect would there be if every company, bank, utility, city, county and country all reported the exact truth about what they think their situation will be on 1/1/00 (just kidding..... make that 01/01/000) .

Company's going down, banks collapsing, utilities going down, governments unable to govern. What exactly would the general public do at this point?

There wouldn't be enough generators, batteries and candles in the supply chain. What if every adult in this country went to withdraw alot if not most or all of their money from a bank, and sold all of their stocks, what would really, really happen?

What if the news is as bad as alot of people on this thread believe and Mr. Koskinen said, "hey, society as we know it is going to collapse for an undetermined amount of time."

What if the NERC said, "Ok, we are going to be totally honest, utilities started to late. We have lied and all is not well, many will lose the ability to produce and/or distribute power and on top of that at least 1/3 of nuclear power plants are going to be taken off line due to various safety reasons. Here in detail is our contingency plan."

Serious question here, I would love to hear some of your answers. What would we do? At this point in the game, right now in August (not last year or the year before) what would Joe and Jane American do?

{A side note: I am not a polly and am preparing in all areas the best I can afford to without going into debt)

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

uh....... make that 01/01/0000. I reckon if they come up with just 3 zeroes there would really be a mess.

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Rick,

Thanks for keeping this thread alive with your own connection example. I do indeed think that you are right about this being in the same arena as trying to turn a battleship around. Sometimes, it's like watching the laws of physics in action. You see the turn in progress, estimate the speed, and dangerous object ahead, and have to say "Well, for those who started turning earlier it looks pretty good, but for those late turners, it doesn't."

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

They would do what they are going to do Jan 1. Only a few more might survive if they had some warning. And they might have some of their money. If its locked up in a bank they have none. Doesn't matter the reason for the bank doors to close...be it bank run or computer failure or power failure or, or, or , the doors are still locked and you still have no money.

Taz

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Norm, it's a recognized fact of political life that once you choose a major agenda or course to proceed on, the most optimum stance is "that's my story and I'm stickin' to it". Sudden policy turnarounds are almost unheard of, unless they come with a complete change of administration. Forced compromises, yes. (OK, "that woman" had "relations" with me, but I didn't lie!) I think we've seen compromises in the Y2K arena already with the admissions that a "little" preparedness might be a good thing. We started out with nothing needed, then went to two or three days, now there is mention of maybe a week being okay from Koskinen's Y2K team.

The Y2K decision nexus has already passed and I can't honestly contemplate a turnaround. As an intellectual exercise only, I think it's quite obvious any major turnaround at this point would create panic and anarchy in places, all wishes for definitive information from the public aside. If I remember correctly, it was in 1996 when a government investigation into the Y2K issue was requested by Senator Moynihan, and the result was a report confirming the problem existed and could cause tremendous disruption if not addressed and fixed prior to 2000. Following that report was the time -- the decision nexus -- when the government had to formulate what their public response to the issue would be. Whether other issues took precedence, or whether the "there's plenty of time still to fix this" type of hopeful thinking prevailed, or whether the intricacy and depth of the problem was not fully understood by decision makers, or whether they honestly thought it wasn't all that important, the political wheels were set in motion for the course we've been on and will remain on until the event happens.

At this beginning of government awareness was the time when a disclosure of the risks might have been made and a public preparation policy implemented along with a full court press for repair. Optimistic "we can get this fixed" statements would have been part and parcel of the package, of course, but some basic citizen preparation measures could have been incorporated in to the plan then without stressing the supply system or panicking anybody. Even a serious Presidential address to the nation early on, optimistic but still making Y2K repairs a top priority for the nation, could have jump started a lot of projects which didn't end up getting off the ground for another year or two. Whatever rationale was used, for good or ill, accurate or inaccurate, confidence in few problems became the "story" and sticking to it is the way it's going to be. That's only how I see it, of course, there are lots of opinions.

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Norm wrote:

Serious question here, I would love to hear some of your answers. What would we do? At this point in the game, right now in August (not last year or the year before) what would Joe and Jane American do?

I agree with Bonnie. This is purely an intellectual exercise. The decision has been made. (Actually it was not made, it was the default decision to do basically nothing about the problem.) June 1998 was the last real opportunity for the Full Monty. Once that date passed, time became everyone's enemy. Anyone in the political arena who lays out the risks now would have to first admit they have screwed up on an unimaginable scale.

"Why did you wait so long to tell me about this? Why wasn't this a national priority in 1996 or 1997? How could you wait this long before acting? What should we do now? Why should I do what you say now when after all, you are admitting you blew this one big time?"

The only way to avoid these very hard questions is to stay the course and hope.

I do not believe the result of the Full Monty would be panic and anarchy even at this late stage. People would make a lot of rational choices. Rational behaviour would have immediate economic consequences. It would create shortages of many goods, it would make other goods unsalable. As consumers we would change our behaviour overnight. In my opinion this would be a good thing even though it would guarantee a rough ride in the days ahead. The worst that would happen is bank runs, and bank runs are not the end of the world.

Instead, we have adopted a very high risk strategy. If Y2k turns out to be a 1 on the scale of 1-10, we come out of this smelling like a rose. No rough ride. No tough questions. Everybody continues to get richer and richer. Personally, I would prefer to act now, even if that means Y2k is guaranteed to be at least a 3 on the 1-10 scale. I'm willing to forget about the possiblity of a 1 or a 2 on the Y2k Richter scale to avoid the possibility of a 9 or 10.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Tom,

Only thing I take issue with is "bank runs are not the end of the world". Unfortunately, banks have many times more investment options in this era than in 1929. In fact, if everyone withdraws enough cash for the 7 day "bump", there may be big trouble. One week's salary of every worker in this country is more money than can be handled by banks and will surely put them in big trouble with those teensy reserves they must have "on hand". But, the biggest problem with bank runs is that banks have money in very high risk investments...big hedge funds that are susceptible to the smallest blip on the internation money scene. Banks are reckless with our money and a bank run is no longer a matter of just declaring a holiday. The markets will react in a split second around the world.

-- Anonymous, August 25, 1999

Bank runs would have a significant economic impact, no doubt, but even if the system was drained of cash, banks would stay open, debit and credit cards would work, and at least some stores would take cheques.

Cash is a commodity. A shortage of cash would be more harmful than mosdt other shortages, but it alone probably is not enough to bring down the monetary system. We would have to lose faith, too.

Tom

-- Anonymous, August 26, 1999

Tom, I think you're missing Elizabeth's point. She's not talking about bank(s) running out of cash. She's talking about bank(s) going... will I actually use the word?... yes: banks going bankrupt.

-- Anonymous, August 26, 1999

Rick,

With all due respect to your "turn a Battleship on a dime" analogy, I prefer the analogy of simply submerging the boat to a peaceful depth of, say, 400 or so feet, dialing up 12 knots, kicking back and blissfully plowing into an under water telephone pole. "Wonder what THAT's doin' there? We weren't supposed to be anywhere near THAT...uh,emergency blow!" We could call it the "dead under the water" analogy. HeHee.

-- Anonymous, August 26, 1999

Good analogy, Knute, except for the fact that the vessel in question didn't know the "telephone pole" was there. In the case of Y2k, the hazard is clearly identified on all the charts, we know where we are in the channel, and we have a visual fix on it ahead in the distance.

(Oh, and I thought it was more like 16 knots? Felt like it.) ;-)

-- Anonymous, August 26, 1999