Hi there,

I've been enjoying the postings to this forum. Very intelligent, wise people here. I've been especially impressed with the women.

Just wanted to report an incident at my work on 9999. We had no Internet access the entire day. People were buzzing that it was a possible 9999 problem. The provider said a circuit was down. The next day it was back up. This is consistent with an essay and comments I read about 9999, I think in the TB2000 arena. Though there were few problems reported about 9999, one person, when testing their system, said that they couldn't lock their building during 9999, but that subsequent dates were okay. In addition, I heard there was another problem with an Internet site for Qpass, with whom we are partnered in creating the PowerWallet. I was unable to follow up on the details, but if there is interest, I will.

-- Anonymous, September 12, 1999

Answers

On September 9 at 6:10 in the morning we had a power dip, caused by very heavy mist allowing a 'flashover'between phases on a 400kv pylon. Worst hit was the sub station nearest the flashover point where a 20 minute black out occurred for 20 000 consumers. The rest of the 357 000 consumer network suffered a noticible (600ms long) power dip which did cause a lot of microwave oven clocks to need resetting.

But, the number of clients who telephoned in, insisting it MUST have been a 9999 phenomenon!

As soon as I explained that really the date was 090999, they all fully understood.

Kind regards..........James

Durban Metro Electricity South Africa

-- Anonymous, September 13, 1999