A preacher, of one of the churches near my newly acquired farm/ranch, received conformation of the probable loss of power in our area from the person in charge. We are getting together a group of people that are preparing, known to the preacher, to coordinate our efforts. How many of you have received confirmed information about the loss of power in your areas? Bill

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

Answers

What "area" might that be?

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

As near as I can tell you, is north of Dallas. I dontn't want to get anyone in trouble for sharing the info with me.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

I should have also noted that I did not want to lose the info source.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

Who is the "person in charge"? I don't mean a name, I mean what is his position? Does he know what he's talking about? (Sometimes the person in charge is the last one to really know what's going on.)

What is meant by "probable"? How, at this stage, would anybody know that power loss is probable? Is this supposedly because Y2K problems won't be fixed?

I'm not meaning to jump down your throat. It's just that unverified, unverifiable bad news is worth no more than unverified, unverifiable good news. And we all get a great deal too much of both.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

The subject of our conversation was Y2K when the preacher mentioned that he had received the information from the "man in charge". He did not specify which level in the chain of command his source occupied, but he appeared to consider it as valid information.

The Webster dictionary defines "probable" as - likely to be or become true or real . As earlier stated, the topic of the discussion was Y2K and its effects on the community. I did not request additional verification from the preacher as he is as deeply concerned about the community as I am and I feel he would not introduce any false information for us to use in our preparations.

< I'm not meaning to jump down your throat. It's just that unverified, unverifiable bad news is worth no more than unverified, unverifiable good news. And we all get a great deal too much of both.>

My post was not meant to cause any additional confusion or concern at this site. I felt that everyone was in agreement that something was going to happen, and was very curious if anyone else had received information of a similar nature. I am personally confidant that the information is valid and am responding accordingly.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

Bill, no, I haven't received any similar information that a local power loss was probable, unless you count utility contingency plans where the most likely planning scenario is for small "localized" outages. But those are planning assumptions and not predictions. I have received a few reports from utility workers which fall into the category of "We don't have a clue what we're doing. [about Y2K remediation] Your guess about what will happen is as good as ours, 'cause the whole situation is a mess here and we aren't sure about anything."

This type of thing is not a prediction of either success or failure either, but it is representative of messages I get from people in other infrastructure areas, not just utilities. Confusion, pressure from above, lack of confidence in the quality of work being done and a throw-up-your-hands resignation to whatever vagaries fate might bring seems to be the state of affairs among most of those I hear from or know personally.

The overall message I get is that people working on Y2K projects are tired, worn down, very stressed, and for good or ill, just wish that 2000 were already here. And they have no more surety about success or failure than we do.

A couple of consultants I know personally and hear from regularly do know the outcome of the projects they're working on, simply because they're on the verge of being scrapped, despite a few million being spent already. One recently wrote me, "I have to say that in all my years in this business I have never seen such a comedy of errors......it is unbelievable how so many people so consistently made asinine assumptions and poor decisions."

That kind of complete inefficiency is not the norm, though. The norm is a shrug of the shoulders and a "just don't know the outcome, but we're doing what we can." I think we tend to fall into a trap, in believing that others who we perceive should be in a "position to know" actually do know something. Often they have no more surety than we do. In effect, I believe most everybody is just going to be holding their metaphoric breath come 2000. It's all about risk management, not surety.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999