Will we ever know if date problems caused the difficulties that we are and will be experiencing? I am mulling over the idea that even if the power were to go out at the stroke of midnight, that NERC, NRC, and governmental sources will insist that it was not Y2K.

If the power were to go out at any other point in time, it would probably be even easier to say this.

I am not sure that the sources of problems will be obvious enough to see.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this view?

Also, according to the Gartner Group, we should be only 39 days away from the peak in simultaneous failure. According to them we should have been on a very steep curve of increased failure since July. Could they be wrong? Or are things being covered up well? Will we ever know?

After talking to Y2K leads here, it appears that Gartner may be wrong in our case.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 1999

Answers

Write it down & take it to the bank: many Y2K problems which *can* be covered up *will* be covered up. In many cases, there won't be much difference whether people know it or not. In others, organizations just won't want to let them be known. Heck, the stories that could be told even *now* are interesting; who knows what they'll be like seven months from now...

I suspect that some day, once the danger (the correct word for many organizations) is passed, they may go public. This has often been the case in the past. Don't know if it will happen this time or not.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 1999

Hi Reporter:

IMHO, problems that occur near the rollover period will mostly fall into one of three categories: Y2k-caused, non-Y2k related, and unknown. Many utilities will have extra staff on hand to determine whether a problem is y2k related or not, since customers will want to know (and some might insist on finding out by taking legal action). For example, if a tree limb is found across conductors, or if a line breaks, we know it's not Y2k. These things should be clearly documented in case they are questioned later. But sometimes it takes hours or days to find the cause, and in other cases, a circuit trips, then recloses, and no physical cause is found. This "unknown" cause happens every day somewhere on the system, unfortunately.

If there are no date sensitive devices on that particular circuit, or on any system connected to it, then it would be very difficult to demonstrate it as a Y2k problem, so some "cause unknown" cases can also be ruled out. But if there is a digital device that is found to cause the problem, then further investigation could prove it to be a Y2k caused problem.

Personally, I believe that the majority of problems will be transparent to the customer. Problems occur every day that the customers never see. Many utilities have been sharing test information, and rollover types of problems will be shared amongst interested utilities, hopefully to prevent any further problems. But if the customer does see an outage, or his meter fails, or his bill is $4000000, then an explanation is in order.

Regarding "things being covered up", I don't know of any date-related customer outage occurring in the past 2 years. I would be very interested to find out more details, if such a thing occurred.

-- Anonymous, November 22, 1999

For problems heading towards litigation and/or insurance claims, there will be major forces with strong monetary interests desiring to show or claim that the problem either is y2k-related or is not.

For instance, many insurance claims will be rejected if the matter is y2k-related, so the insurance companies will have an incentive to make the connection.

Also, companies that decide as a strategic matter to hide behind the liability limitations of last summer's YWK Act will also seek to prove the problem was y2k-related (although that could preclude insurance reimbursement if the company loses in court).

I don't think most customers will have the resources to press the issue to their benefit.

For PR reasons, I think problems not involving litigation or insurance will perhaps be more likely to seek a non-y2k-related explanation.

-- Anonymous, November 23, 1999

Dan,

For the record, I was speaking of organizations other than power companies when I mentioned coverups (although I could discuss at least one power company where that *might* be the case...)

-- Anonymous, November 25, 1999

Drew, thanks for the clarification...you did appear to be a bit cynical in your original post...:)

I don't doubt that some companies, for fear of litigation, will attempt to cover up Y2k issues. For power, I just don't think there will be many y2k caused outages, so I hope this isn't even a big issue come next year. I did hear that y2k litigation can be brought until 1/1/2002 or 2003, so companies won't be out of the woods completely for 2 or 3 years.

I hope you are enjoying your vacation.

-- Anonymous, November 25, 1999

Dan,

Oh, I'm not cynical- just going on what I've been (reliably) told... :)

I note you say you don't expect "many" outages caused by Y2K. Does that mean you think there may be some, albeit few?

Hope your vacation was good too (I assume you had a least a few days off).

-- Anonymous, November 28, 1999

Drew, I should have written "many (if any) Y2k caused outages..."

Yes, I had four nice days off. See ya around.

-- Anonymous, November 29, 1999