Perceptions or Reality - Y2k Reporting and Utilities

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Here's an interesting article that popped up in the Energyland.net newsroom today:

TV Stations Begin Y2K Testing

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Associated Press via NewsEdge Corporation : Southern Company, which provides electricity to 3.8 million customers in the southern United States, was blindsided recently by an unexpected Y2K bug.

The company conducted a dry run of its computer systems last month to predict if any glitches would pop up when the clock turns to the year 2000, and alerted the media to its plans. As luck would have it, the test coincided with thunderstorms that swept through the Atlanta area, knocking out power to thousands of Southern's customers.

Fair enough. Storms happen, and Southern dispatched crews to repair its lines. What utility executives didn't expect was to hear television reporters wrongly claim the power outages were the result of Y2K problems.

Southern now lives in fear of a different kind of damage to the company's reputation if there's a bad storm on Dec. 31, spokeswoman Laura Gillig said.

``With some portion of the media, there's a tendency to hype things up, to sensationalize them,'' she said, ``and we perceive that could be a problem. It's the great unknown.''

Gillig told her story at a workshop sponsored by the Radio and Television News Directors Association in Charlotte, where Y2K experts advised local electronic reporters how to cover the story.

The session made a couple of things clear: It's never too early _ and is quickly becoming too late _ to plan coverage effectively. And there's no end to the story angles, and the potential pitfalls for incautious journalists.

Robert Alloway, director of the National Leadership Task Force on Y2K, and author Peter de Jager, whose Web site tracks millennium-related bugs, said most problems have been spotted and corrected already. About 95 percent of the computer systems won't fail at all, Alloway said. But that still leaves plenty of potential glitches.

``The world is not stopping on January 1st,'' he said. ``It is slowing down a little bit.''

Based on what utilities are reporting, Alloway foresees no major Y2K-related power outages. Problems are much more likely to appear in municipal water systems, the experts said.

If they haven't already, journalists should be questioning companies throughout their regions about their Y2K preparedness _ utilities, transportation authorities, banks, supermarkets, small businesses like dry cleaners. Reporters should compile phone lists of where company representatives will be on New Year's Eve so they can be easily reached.

``Your electric utilities are probably going to be fine, but have you made the call?'' asked David Bernknopf, director of news planning at CNN. ``And have you gotten beyond the answer, `we think we have everything under control?'''

Reporters need to be able to recognize ahead of time which problems are Y2K-related and which aren't, like Southern's storm-damaged power lines. For example, up to 5 percent of automatic teller machines aren't working at any given time, de Jager said. Will a live camera crew be standing beside one of them and blame a Y2K bug when money doesn't come out on Jan. 1?

``In about five seconds of reporting, you can precipitate a bank run _ unless you do it right,'' he said.

The Canadian computer expert plans to spend much of New Year's Eve and Day in an airplane, flying from Toronto to London and back, partly to show his confidence that air travel will be safe from Y2K problems.

Dismissing survivalists as nuts, De Jager said reporters shouldn't waste time covering people who are stocking up in anticipation of disaster. CNN's Bernknopf, though, said it's important to follow the human response to the situation; he's more worried about people predicting the end of the world and then turning to terrorism to fulfill their own prophecies.

Standing before a room of reporters, de Jager was contemptuous of the profession. He said he expects the media to make Y2K worse than it really is.

"When you want to show restraint,'' he lectured, ``you're incapable of it.''

But a reporter from the Seattle area told how information problems go both ways. Steve Krueger of KPLU said he was stunned when a half-dozen companies he surveyed flatly refused to reveal anything they were doing about Y2K, or even confirm that they were conducting tests. The prominent exception was the airplane maker Boeing, which replied in meticulous detail, he said.

``If I was a public relations man, I would want to tell the world that we're on top of this,'' Krueger said.

The experts urged reporters to keep trying, and even publicly embarrass authorities who are keeping silent. ``People are surprisingly cooperative on this because they don't want a panic,'' Bernknopf said.

Many television and radio stations already have emergency staffing plans in place, preparing to have reporters ready round-the-clock on New Year's weekend. The experts warned stations not to exhaust their staff, because many Y2K problems won't become evident until many businesses go back to work on Monday, Jan. 3 and for weeks and months to come.

``This is an event that is going to continue like bad chili for a long time,'' de Jager said.


My comments: In my simple mind, complacency has become a tremendous issue. As long as everyone thinks we have won the war, the vigilance that we were expecting on New Year's eve will NOT come to pass. Companies may bring in a few extra people to deal with unexpected problems, but I am seeing no sense of urgency in "testing and retesting" (as we have been continually assured would be taking place through the end of the year), and in fine tuning contingency plans to work out bugs.

The people who could be making a difference, like DeJager and Bob Alloway (who I respect tremendously for their past work, don't get me wrong) are too busy "managing perceptions". If there are indeed problems during the rollover, isolated or not, too many people will be caught unprepared, just like so many folks and emergency management officials on the East Coast were caught unprepared for hurricane Floyd.

Hurricane Floyd may have indeed been, as I've heard it described, a "once in 500 years event". Well, Y2k is a "once in 1000 years" event - and actually, unprecedented, because we simply don't know what the overall impact is going to be. Please go back to some earlier threads in this forum (use the search engine) and read some of the definitions and perceptions of the terms "local" and "regional". Think about it the next time that someone like Peter, or Sen. Bennett, or anyone says that "the Y2k bug is whipped, although there may be some local problems".

-- Anonymous, October 12, 1999

Answers

Yesterday I met a friend at the grocery store - she is a retired woman, living in senior housing on a fixed income. She is very intelligent and quite invloved with local politics. She and I started to talk about Y2K - she had no knowledge about the potential pitfalls of this event. Her perception, from the media, was that Y2k was a non-event and those who were preparing were a little nutso. (To tell her that I was preparing would not neccessarily change her point of view.;)) I told her about the disparagement between the MAIN report and the MAIN Y2K Consumer letter. (I love that example.) I explained that we are probably getting have truths and if that is the case, it won't hurt to prepare. She was concerned and a little angry that the media hadn't done it's job in warning the public. (Of course, one wonders if that is the media's job - or is the media just interested in selling advertising space?)

I pointed her to several books - and she went on her way, hopefully with a couple more boxes of mac and cheese and some canned goods.

I beleive that the constant reassurance and happy faces have back fired on Mr. Kosiken, et al - what could have been a great opportunity for Americans to step up and show their ingeniuity once again, has turned into a spin job of potential catastrophic proportions.

JMHO,

Terri

-- Anonymous, October 12, 1999


Hi Rick. From where I stand, complacency is not even an option. The very issues you raise regarding more Y2k testing and fine tuning of contingency plans are exactly what I've been up to my eyeballs working on. More testing planned for this week and next, and everyone is re-reviewing their contingency plans...many plans are past Revision 6, 7, even 10. I expected to be working on Y2k part time by now, but it now appears I'll be on it full time right on through the rollover.

Also, both EPRI and NERC are having large scale Y2k conferences later this month (San Diego is very nice in October, you should come on down), and attendance is expected to be high. Thus, I think at least the larger companies are still going full steam on this thing.

Regarding hurricane Floyd, Y2k just does not seem to have that kind of potential, based on test results. I agree that no one knows exactly what will happen, but the power industry does appear to have this thing licked; this was known back in July, when most companies finished testing critical devices and systems.

I too cringe when I hear the "no massive, but possibly local outages" mantra, but for very different reasons than you do. In the thousands of tests performed, very, very few distribution devices (less than a handful) have had any serious problems, so why do folks say there will be local outages? The distribution system is even more immune to Y2k problems than generation and transmission, and the few problem devices in those two areas are widely known anyway.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 1999


I guess, then, that the auditors and consultants who find serious Y2K problems in "remediated" utility systems that would affect production must be... lying, greedy bastards?... Right?

Whoa. Playing Pollyanna is just too darned easy any more....

-- Anonymous, October 12, 1999


I still like Sen. Bennett's discription that problems may be "across the street". I think this includes both regional and local problems.

Wuss that I am.... still hoping for warm showers in January.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 1999


Thanks Rick.

For my part, I would estimate that the real implementation is taking place for the first time in many locations. Having seen quite a few reports containing "progress and status" fluff in my day, I am convinced that many companies have not taken it seriously.

In my own industry, no less than 4 major petroleum products pipelines experienced major SNAFU's with their "testing" which was really implementation for the first time. The systems did not work and were yanked in 3 of 4. This is not encouraging. I thought these jerks were gonna stop spinning at this point. Looks like they're more concerned witht the stock market than peoples lives. Very sad.

-- Anonymous, October 12, 1999



The systems did not work and were yanked in 3 of 4. This is not encouraging.

No, it is not encouraging. Day by day, we get closer to the time when "yanking" them will not be a feasible option.

I guess it's a good thing that everything is on track, doing well, and looking good.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 1999


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