http://www.wbn.com/y2ktimebomb/Industry/Utilities/lunds9940.htm

By Dave Lundsford October 8, 1999 With an open mind, logic, and common sense, deciphering what Robert Bennett and other government officials say regarding Y2K readiness can be a rather bleak experience. Nonetheless, we can't say that civilization is about to crumble, nor can we say all is ok.

To fully understand Y2K requires more time than most people are willing to dedicate, including the press. Slightly in their defense, if one doesn't have the capacity to understand the technical mechanics of the problem, how on earth can they ask an educated question? In the media's world where one is constantly surrounded by his or her peers, God forbid they look stupid! Many fear that the response to one of their questions will dance circles around them and sail overhead never to be grasped by an inferior mortal. For a reporter, that's like a football player running the wrong way for a touchdown.

Many concerned and highly experienced computer programmers have made lists of qualified questions for you and the reporters as well as I to ask. This is why I can't wholeheartedly defend them. People have tried to help them get to the bottom of things and they ignored their assistance. With that said, let me give an example of how anyone can decipher the truth with the tools of common sense, logic, a little understanding of the problem and most of all an open mind. Recently I read the following: "U. S. Senate Y2K Committee Chairman Robert Bennett (R-Utah) has criticized electric utilities for failing to disclose Y2K readiness information and wants laggards publicly exposed(He) said 75% of the 3,200 (2,400) electric utilities don't routinely share information about their Y2K readiness." What this really means is quite simple: with about 80 plus days to go, Mr. Bennett has no idea what the status of those 2,400 electric utilities is. That averages out to 48 per state. Before I go on, think about it. What is the population and the geographical size of each of those 2,400 regions? (A little background: in actuality there are more than 7,800 facilities nationwide; only 3,200 are associated with NERC's reporting; as for the remaining 4,600 they are either small facilities or they're not associated w/NERC or both. I doubt any of the 2,400 mentioned above is a small facility.) "Despite that concern, Bennett said a prolonged nationwide blackout will almost certainly not occur because of the effortsto ensure that the national power grid works. But local and regional outages are possible if smaller utilities aren't prepared" In college I made an effort to get straight A's, but it never happened. My parents would have been nuts to assure their friends that it almost certainly was going to happen. The key word in the above statement was "prolonged," did you catch it? How long is prolonged? Is it one year? Twenty years? Certainly prolonged does not imply four to seven days. That's what FEMA and the Red Cross is recommending you prepare yourself for in the event of power outages and they too do not believe in a prolonged nationwide outage. What no government official is saying is that a nationwide blackout for 4-7 days can very well be the beginning of the worst case scenarios no one believes or wants to think is possible.

Bennett continues to say now that local and regional outages are possible if smaller utilities are not prepared. The fact is, we have 800 electric utilities that apparently practice disclosure. This says nothing about their degree of readiness, only that they'll talk or send a generic statement given to them first by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) (Mike Adams of Y2kNewswire already proved NERC provides these for them.). There are 2,400 electric facilities Bennett refers to as "Laggards" and wants to expose. Common sense and logic dictate that Bennett's displeasure with these 2,400 tells me they are not small. The same rationale says that the small ones are part of the missing group of 4,600. It doesn't take much to conclude that of the 2,400, the majority, if not all, are in heavily populated areas or in other ways critical to the overall infrastructure.

The article went on to say that the NERC refuses to release the names of the 2,400 companies even at Bennett's request. An NERC spokesperson asked: "Is something like this being asked of all the other infrastructures?" That brings back memories of childhood days at the supper table when a sibling would say: "Billy didn't eat his peas, how come I have to?" NERC needs to grow up. If the phone companies are not asked, it is not quite the same. If the phone companies fail but the power stays on, it's manageable; however if the power goes down little works! "In any event, less than one half of 1% of all electric utilities are not Y2K readybased on information from various utility trade groups...I don't think anyone can find fault with all the work the utility industry has done." What does he mean when he says "In any event"? After what we've covered, he now pulls out a figure so safe that it could be considered an insult to our intelligence (Remember he has info on only 800 facilities. 800 X .5% = 4) but legally speaking, the figure is absolutely right. The problem is that in actuality it's also much higher. Example: If 70 out of 100 people are female and I said less than 65% are male am I right? Yes, but I'm implying it's a majority when it's much less. Same principle here, if 75% are actually not Y2K ready and he claims .5% of all of them are not Y2K ready the figure is still right, however inaccurate.

The next comment is that he doesn't think anyone can find fault with all the work the utility industry has done. For starters they could have begun 10 years ago and today it would be a non-issue. Of course if the power goes down and the problems mount and life as we know it today is gone, I really believe there will be those that fault the utility industry among others, which leads to this concluding comment: "Most utilities are reluctant to publicly list Y2K status. 'A lot of lawyers are concerned about liability." Telling the truth is no longer a virtue, it is simply a legal liability.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

Answers

Sean,

Remember the U.S. Governments' definitions for "localized" and "regional", according to a previous response to this forum:

Localized: One state at a time; ie., an outage affecting the entire state of Illinois. Presumeably, multiple localized failures could occur simultaneously.

Regional : Several adjacent states at a time; ie., an outage of Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan simultaneously.

Do you think the average person uses these same definitions? No way ! I think the public should be informed that "localized" does not mean a small town or portion thereof, and that "regional" does not mean a quadrant within one state.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

Brian,

You make a good point here. And I think the use of those terms is intentionally misleading, so as to avoid public concern. The same sort of misunderstanding applies to the "Y2k Ready" statements. When we hear this, what we are really hearing is that the "mission critical" systems, a small percentage of their total systems, have been worked on, and they think are ready to function. What about all the other systems they had running in the organization before? Many times, the truth is that 80% +/- of their systems are *not ready* yet.

-- Anonymous, October 08, 1999

"He) said 75% of the 3,200 (2,400) electric utilities don't routinely share information about their Y2K readiness." What this really means is quite simple: with about 80 plus days to go, Mr. Bennett has no idea what the status of those 2,400 electric utilities is. That averages out to 48 per state. Before I go on, think about it. What is the population and the geographical size of each of those 2,400 regions? (A little background: in actuality there are more than 7,800 facilities nationwide; only 3,200 are associated with NERC's reporting; as for the remaining 4,600 they are either small facilities or they're not associated w/NERC or both. I doubt any of the 2,400 mentioned above is a small facility.)"

I am all for the hunt for truth, but it's not in the numbers above. NERC has data from other industry associations and thousands of utilites - not just 800. Go to the NERC site, go to the Senate report, get the data, then draw your conclusions. And the 75% figure was for utilities who didn't release their Y2K reports to the public, these utilities DID provide the data to NERC! I think I saw where NERC reported a few dozen utilities that didn't respond to them, thats it. The companies that respond represent most of the US capacity, not sure of the figures, seems like it was 85 -95 % or so. I have it somewhere, to late tonight to look it up. Someone else do the homework for a change if you want the truth...

Regards,

-- Anonymous, October 09, 1999