White House officials readying Year 2000 emergency center

The Dallas Morning News Web-posted: 11:02 p.m. Sep. 7, 1999

WASHINGTON -- White House officials are preparing a millennium war room to monitor possible disasters from around the country and the world stemming from the Year 2000 computer glitch. The $40 million Information Coordination Center will get started this week with limited tests built around possible computer malfunctions associated with the date 9-9-99 Thursday, Sept. 9, 1999. Few computer problems are expected, but officials at the center and at ancillary emergency data centers elsewhere in Washington plan to use the date for a millennium trial run. The federal government is mobilizing what could be the largest peacetime emergency response effort in U.S. history to deal with the main event Jan. 1, 2000. From the moment the new year begins at midnight in New Zealand (7 a.m. Eastern time Friday, Dec. 31), a wave of information will head toward the Information Coordination Center, on two floors of an old Secret Service office several blocks from the White House. John Koskinen, President Clinton's Y2K czar, says the center will feed information to the president and two multiple-agency working groups -- one for domestic crises, one for international problems. "It's not at this point an emergency response mobilization," Koskinen said, "because we're not out dealing with emergencies. It will be the largest event-monitoring effort in the history of the federal government." The Information Coordination Center will have a staff of about 40 crisis management specialists, led by retired Lt. Gen. Peter Kind, former director of the Army's information systems network. The Y2K information center has an electric generator and will be stocked with provisions for the New Year's weekend. If the center goes down, responsibility will be transferred to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/money/daily/detail/0,1136,23000000000114968,00.html

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), September 08, 1999

Answers

The Y2K information center has an electric generator and will be stocked with provisions for the New Year's weekend.

Yeah, I'll bet those barfbags have just three days of provisions.

-- Dog Gone (layinglow@rollover.now), September 08, 1999.

See thread...

The Government's Y2K War Room

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id= 001My7

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 08, 1999.

Yeah thats pretty funny, like they are only going to have enough food for the weekend. Someone should try to get a photo of the provisions stocked up, betcha they got more like 3 months worth.

-- too busy (toobusy@myserver.com), September 08, 1999.