http://cnn.com/WEATHER/9909/18/floyd.01/ Friday's flooding forced an EDS Data Center in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, to shut down. The center processes automatic teller machine transactions at banks and credit unions all over the country. "We are working so hard to get this thing back up," said Reed Byrum, a spokesman at the company's Plano, Texas, headquarters. Byrum said the company's equipment was not damaged, but without power, the center could not process transactions. EDS handles records for 5,000 ATMs in the United States as well as customers of banks and credit unions whose transactions are processed at the New Jersey center. CNN

-- Wm McBride (mcbri29@ibm.net), September 18, 1999

Answers

Hmmmm... though this situation clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with Y2K, I wonder if it qualifies as a "systemic failure" that Alan Greenspan told us would almost certainly not happen. Probably not: 5,000 ATM's sounds like a large number, but it's probably only a small percentage of the national total. How many ATM's are there, anyway?

I'm intrigued to see that EDS didn't have a disaster recovery plan that would have allowed them to move their processing activities to another site. I guess this is one place where the Y2K contingency plan won't work if it consists of nothing more than dusting off the "traditional" contingency plan and putting a new date on it.

-- Ed Yourdon (HumptyDumptyY2K@yourdon.com), September 18, 1999.

Friday . . .Saturday . . .Sunday

3 Days = 72 Hours

By gosh - they were right - - -no matter how bad - a 72 hour storm!

-- Same as B4 (NWPhotog@Foxcomm.net), September 18, 1999.

... the company's equipment was not damaged, but without power, the center could not process transactions.

EDS sure isnt mentioning it on their web-site... yet... EDS: News Room News Releases...

http://www.eds.com/news/news_releases/ news_news_releases.shtml

Or their Y2K page...

http://www.eds.com/general/y2k_statement/ y2k_stmt_overview.shtml

(But maybe they have flood insurance ).

;-D

However...

Search Nando Times the 24-hour news service at...

http://www.nandosearch.com/

With variations on key words: EDS flood ATM and youll find snippetts are making the CNN and AP Associated Press rounds...

Another CNN snippett...

[snip]

http:// cnn.com/WEATHER/9909/17/floyd.floods.02/

...Utility companies warned some people could be without electricity into the weekend.

Friday's flooding forced the shutdown of an EDS Data Center in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, that processes ATM bank machine transactions at banks and credit unions all over the country.

"We are working so hard to get this thing back up," said Reed Byrum, a spokesman at the Plano, Texas, headquarters of the firm founded by Ross Perot, Electronic Data Services.

Byrum said employees of the center were able to divert some transactions to some of its other 64 data centers, but service could be disrupted for users of some of EDS' 5,000 ATMs in the United States as well as customers of banks and credit unions whose transactions are processed at that EDS center.

"We have no hardware damage at this point, but there's no electric or telephone power at this time," he said. "If there's no telecom, we can't transmit."

[AP snip]

New Jersey Regional News
Record flooding strikes N.J. waterways; emergency declared
The Associated Press
9/18/99 10:55 AM

http://hotnews.nj.com/cgi-free/ getstory.cgi?j0229_PM_NJ--Floyd-NJ&NJO&news&njreg

The floods curtailed long-distance phone service to nearly 1 million people, mostly in Passaic and Bergen counties, and knocked out all service to another 35,000. It even prevented some ATM and credit card transactions across the nation because a key telephone switching center in Rochelle Park flooded.

[end snip]

###

Y2K lessons to learn. (If we make the connections).

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 18, 1999.

No electricity, no telecom, what, they affect one another ?!?!

Dumb, duh dum dumb, ZOW !! Course y'all know this Forum's been right all along. Gonna take January 0000000000000 before the rest of the world catches on.

Yes, class, the Cull of Oh, key word is --- INTERCONNECTED!

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), September 18, 1999.

I guess this is one place where the Y2K contingency plan won't work if it consists of nothing more than dusting off the "traditional" contingency plan and putting a new date on it.

I have a hunch we're going to see a lot of that in a few months.

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), September 18, 1999.

Just a "localized disruption." Nothing to worry about. <:)))= (big grin)

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), September 18, 1999.

Well, that explains it. ATMs for the a local credit union have been down all weekend. Still not working as of noon today. Hmmmm, I thought any problems like this could easily be fixed in 72 hours. I guess it depends on what your definition of 'hours' is. Or maybe it's more related to your definition of '72'. Perhaps numbers have different meanings in different parts of the U.S. Some sentences are hard to figure out, especially when there's words and numbers in them.

This is a clue. Perhaps you'll catch it. Many won't.

No, this is obviously not related to Y2K. But it is precisely the type of problems we have collectively been pointing to and say "interconnectedness". A flood shuts off electricity to a building in New Jersey. So what? Not my problem all the way out here in Iowa. What do you mean I can't get money from the ATM? I'm in Iowa. My money's in Iowa, my ATM card is in Iowa, my bank is in Iowa. No floods in Iowa (at the current time). So what gives?

You mean to tell me that my ATM is so stupid it can't check my with my local bank? It's a LOCAL CALL fer cryin out loud. Sheeesh, what kind of lame brained programmers wrote that piece of garbage?

Don't tell me about processing centers, economies of scale, outsourcing or any other goobledy-gook. Tell me when my card will work. Just where is that American ingenuity when you need it?

Who woulda thought??

Fortunately, I was prepared for just such an event even though I'd been assured that it was highly unlikely.

Here's the moral of the story: If you can gather your clues from very minor inconveniences such as this one and take action accordingly, you may be able to better survive more serious events if and when they do occur.

Or, perhaps you'll just wait for better clues.

Your choice.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), September 20, 1999.

Interesting. So that could explain why the ATM at counters of my grocery store yesterday were down. I had no cash or checks on me, and after 8 bags of groceries were bagged, the clerk THEN tells me the ATM's were down. (Had to use my credit card, and if there's something I hate to do is buy food on credit.) I'm in PA, so conceivably the store could have been linked to EDS in NJ.

-- Chris (#$%^&@pond.com), September 20, 1999.

But nobody will need any extra cash come New Year's Day .....

Now, where is Greenspun when you need him?

The entire and sole mission of the federal government and all the propaganda they can muster for the past 10 months has been to keep people's money in the banks, and now this little episode has to come up......

One room, in one building, in one city, in one state flooded one day - and 5000 ATM's nationwide remain shutdown for .... more days, and will remain shutdown until the problem and the phone lines are fixed.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Marietta, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 20, 1999.

Well - actually, our local KING TV5 said yesterday that Washington Mutual and StoneHarbor C.U. atm cards and Visa ATM cards were being affected by the New Jersey problem. Seems the ATM's out here in Seattle area send the message from here back to New Jersey who then clears the transaction back thru a center out here. Lots of restaurants in the area were also having problems because they couldn't get the transaction ok code and Alliance (clearing center out here) would not guarantee payment without the ok code. I'd say coast to coast is pretty localized. {:-)NOT!

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), September 20, 1999.