I went to my town meeting on Y2K, and GUESS WHAT!

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I went to my town meeting last night. I'd like to say first of all thanks to everyone on Forum who responded and encouraged me to go. Despite the meeting's title y2 AOK...I found the panel to sincere and (basically) uninformed, but kind hearted...except for one person. I truly meant to just sit there, case the audience out and see if I knew anyone, check out who were GI's and who weren't. The keynote speaker was Randy Von Liski from Governor Ryan's office. He made statements such as: "No one can say there won't be problems, but don't blame everything on y2k. Someone could hit a phone pole and cause the power to go out; everyone could call on the phones at the same time and cause the phones to not work, the system just couldn't handle that." Then he went on..."There is a network that will be showing a y2k movie", he read what all would be shown in the movie and said this is basically just malarky (sp); the rating are low and they are trying to beef them up. Boy I was stewing, I tried to hold back my tongue...but when he started in on the state of Illinois holding a drill (someone had asked a question about the National Guard), he said they basically wouldn't be needed. I had to correct him (Thanks to whoever posted that article on the forum yesterday wherein it stated that the National Guard would be in armories in 24 cities.) He didn't look to happy. Also by going I found out that our power company has a 20 day supply of coal set aside. Our police force/fire/911 kept talking about the city's contingencies plans. I asked them if they would publish the contingency plans in the paper for the public, they didn't have any plans to do that. I noticed Cory has been talking a lot lately about power surges and so I tried to ask a question to get people thinking about that. I told them I live in a rural area serviced by a coop, if the power is unstable and we have rolling black/brown outs, wouldn't it behoove us to unplug major appliances like refrigerators and/or get power surgers to protect our tv's etc. They said I should consult an electrician. So much for trying to get them thinking. When I turned on the news that night the report was, don't worry, be happy. In actuality I left there with people feeling like we don't really know what's coming, but we are trying to get ready...Before I could drift off to sleep, there was Ted Koppel showing us how easy it is for biowarfare to happen. Do we really need to show people easy it is to do this. Copycats are everywhere, just like with Columbine. Oh well, thanks to everyone on the forum!! Marsha!

-- Marsha (MSykes@court.co.macon.il.us), October 06, 1999

Answers

To Marsha. Please tell me what part of the state was your town meeting. I live in DuPage County. I am surrounded by DGI's. thanks.

-- mwerks3 (mwerks3@yahoo.com), October 06, 1999.

I'm in Macon County.

-- Marsha (MSykes@court.co.macon.il.us), October 06, 1999.

Mwerks3

Im in southern Cook County....Same DGI's here.

Southside Ed

-- Southside Ed (Still@home.fornow), October 06, 1999.


Marsha did you get a feel for the demeanor or attitude of some of the others in attendance?

Did anyone speak out about personal preparations or need for them?

-- no talking please (breadlines@soupkitchen.gov), October 06, 1999.


Those type of meetings are predictable and a waste of time. There's complacency and denial from those that are in charge. Don't worry about what others are doing or what you think they are going to do for you, you have to do for yourself and be ready. Think water and lots of it....Ammo too.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), October 06, 1999.


Any serious preparations seemed to be shunned. Kate Wiggins from the Red Cross basically said "If a need arises, we'll be there". (Such words of comfort). Both hospitals were represented and put on a good face. People asked about the oil situation and how that might limit things...I think they responded like, we don't have anyone here to answer questions like that. Same thing about the post office, someone asked if it was compliant. I wanted to say no, but I couldn't prove it and didn't want to draw any attention to myself. The panelist on the food distribution knew me (a friend DGI) commented on one of my earlier questions and said, "Marsha, I can answer that question for you." GREAT, TELL EVERYONE WHO I AM...Someone asked if they should buy a generator. Power company answered, well if you think you need it. We were informed you need to have a permit to hook it through the house. Power company's spokesperson was basically reading someone's report. Couldn't answer any in depth questions other than we've reviewed the situation, we have checked for embedded chips and there weren't a lot that would be impacted by y2k. One man after asking how would meals on wheels continue to take care of the elderly and shut in walked out after not getting a satifactory answer. Illinois Power said that the Clinton Nuclear Power Plant tested okay (I've still got to purchase some potassium iodide. I keep putting it off). My father came and my brother-in-law (state trooper) and his wife came. I've been working on them for sometime. I'm not sure how much of a get it he is or what he knows...I did give him a copy of Tony Brown's Journal of the FBI informant; I've been trying to show that to as many people as I can, for what it's worth. In fact, I e-mailed Tyrone Powers (FBI informant) after seeing the video and let him know I appreciated him coming forward and I hope and pray everything goes well with him. He wrote back and stated that he has a free newsletter that he puts out, but I'm afraid to sign up...what if he's being watched and his e-mail too. Scary...(tyronepowers.com). Nobody stated 100 compliant, but everybody was pretty darn close. I wished I could have introduced myself to some people that appeared to be GI's but I wasn't able to.

-- Marsha (MSykes@court.co.macon.il.us), October 06, 1999.

"Im in southern Cook County....Same DGI's here.

Southside Ed

-- Southside Ed (Still@home.fornow), October 06, 1999. "

Not all DGI's, I'm also in southern Cook County and I know of a few other GI's from this area......... At least up to the 25 count. I know that doesn't say much for the area, but anything is better than nothing.......

Kath

-- Kath (alsostill@home.fornow), October 06, 1999.


I'm in agreement with Barbou's comment about the worthlessness of these meetings. I refused to go to our local 'conversation' meeting because I knew it would be totally staged and any 'unpleasantness' would be editted out by news time: 'ALL IS WELL', etc.

The former USSR had nothing on us in regards to propoganda. Even to the point where people here prefer to hear the sweet, siren song of the murmur-maid as she draws the ships to the rocks. They know darned well the state of this country. They know that the news is totally controlled. They know this but they do nothing about it and in fact ingest it daily, hourly.

To bad.

-- ..- (dit@dot.dash), October 06, 1999.


That line about the phones not handling the calls on new years always makes me puke. Every new year, everyone calls everyone to say(half drunk,of course) HAPPY NEW YEAR YOU SOB!

Why would the phones handle the volume all those times, but not this time?!?

Things that make you go Hmmmmmm....

-- CygnusXI (noburnt@toast.net), October 06, 1999.


Kath,

well, you and I probably dont run in the same circles. Add 6 more.

Good luck to you and yours.

Southside Ed

-- Southside Ed (Still@home.fornow), October 06, 1999.



My Dear Marsha,

In respondse to your quiry about needing surge protection. You most deffinately will. both for the applianes and most certainly for you computer, I highly recommend that you put one of those battery back up units of the computer (so that you can down load it before you shut it off).

Feel lucky if you only have periods of brown outs/ black outs. Incidently, I AM an electrican, started out that way any way. I was in the feild of power generation construction for 34 years. ( I helped build those power houses in other words.)

To date there have been 9 power plants go down, my information is that more than half had, or possibly had embeded systems as the root cause. There is not to much physical evidence left after an exploson / fire of the intensity that is possible with hydrogen or coal dust as the combustibles.

My respondse to y2k? When I first learned mid last year that the embeded system problems were not taken care of (like we had been told that they would be as far back as 77') In the coal fired power generation complexes that I had helped install and calibrate the embeded system on ( I will not even bring up the various refineries or smelters I have worked on). Was to go on a vacation...The vacation won't end untill 06/30/2000. I don't "cotton" to the idea of being drafted to FOF for any one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_abunker@forty.feet), October 06, 1999.


"Before I could drift off to sleep, there was Ted Koppel showing us how easy it is for biowarfare to happen. Do we really need to show people easy it is to do this. Copycats are everywhere..."

The technology isn't really all that simple. Johnny isn't going to be pissed at his teacher and go home and whip up some weaponized, genetically altered smallpox/ebola chimera. The folks most likely to do this have made multimillion dollar investments and were thinking on this many years ago. DCK

-- Don Kulha (dkulha@vom.com), October 06, 1999.


Don,

I see your point but remember that it doesn't even have to be "genetically altered" small pox/ebola, etc. When was the last time someone received a vax for small pox? Ebola? Cholera? Typhoid? Anthrax? (not counting military personnel). Tuberculosis (nasty drug resistant strains out there now)? Most people don't even know how to avoid the more common ones, signs and symptoms, etc.

-- Kristi (securxsys@cs.com), October 06, 1999.


I saw the same program, and had the same thoughts that now somebody will see how easy it is and try it. But, really, the terrorists have known this all along. There is some deterrence in our ability to deliver some very destructive retaliation to those responsible.

Also, there have been some reports that US intelligence agencies have stopped a couple of terrorist groups which had some biological/chemical capabilities in the past.

The troubling statement on the Nightline program was the statement that it"will happen." Makes me wonder how the expert was so confident.

gene

-- gene (ekbaker@essex1.com), October 06, 1999.


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