Representatives of utility companies will take their message of readiness to public-access TV.

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

http://www.news-observer.com/daily/1999/12/01/biz01.html

Officials hope call-in show will squash Y2K-bug fears

Representatives of utility companies will take their message of readiness to public-access TV.

By KARIN SCHILL, Staff Writer

Still not sure those lights will stay on after a night of New Year's celebrating one month from now? Here's your chance to question officials from the power, gas and phone companies -- on live television in homes across the state. The state Utilities Commission and the agency's Public Staff are sponsoring a Y2K readiness call-in broadcast Thursday morning in hopes of allaying any lingering fears that the computer bug will wreak havoc Jan. 1. Officials from Alltel, Piedmont Natural Gas Corp., Carolina Power & Light and the Public Staff will be on hand to answer questions and discuss what their industries have done to ensure that the switch to 2000 will go smoothly. The event also will provide information about the state's contingency plans in the unlikely event that something does go wrong, said Jimmie Little, who is leading the Public Staff's Y2K committee. The broadcast will air between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m. on the Open Public Events Network, which reaches more than 3 million cable viewers in North Carolina. The number to call with questions is (888) 228-6736. "We're in excellent shape in North Carolina. No state has been as proactive," Little said. "We started early, and we worked with the companies instead of beating them over the head. We're not anticipating any serious outages at this point." That said, his group is putting its festivities on hold the entire New Year's weekend to answer phone calls from the news media and to update a Web site that will carry instant information about outages if they occur. "It will probably be very boring," Little said. Polls have indicated that the public has grown less concerned about potential Y2K problems as the critical date draws nearer. In the past few years, utilities and other industries have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to rewrite computer code and upgrade hardware to ensure that computers will read the year 2000 as 2000 -- not 1900 -- and thus function as they should. Experts now expect developing nations to be most at risk of having their computers crash. Staff writer Karin Schill can be reached at 829-4521 or kschill@nando.com

-- Uncle Bob (UNCLB0B@Tminus29&counting.down), December 01, 1999

Answers

They can do what they want with their "message", but the message that MY utility sent PAINFULLY home to ME this past week is that they're liars.

And like my mother always told me, never trust a liar. Never believe a liar.

So let 'em say what they want. If they're like the locals here in Nowhereville, their words are worth their weight in electrons.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), December 01, 1999.


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