http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGISNEYHP2C.html

Dec 26, 1999 - 10:29 PM

Federal Officials Say It's All Systems Go for Y2K By Jonathan D. Salant Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Eat, drink and be merry on New Year's Eve, because the advent of the year 2000 should cause few, if any, problems, a bevy of federal officials said Sunday. Hospitals, power plants, air traffic control systems and prisons are all Y2K ready, they said. The top aviation official will be in the air as the new year begins, and military personnel will be monitoring missiles with the Russians.

Indeed, officials said Americans should make no more preparations for New Year's this year than they would do for any long winter weekend.

"Our goal has been to avoid overreaction," President Clinton's top Y2K adviser, John Koskinen, said on ABC's "This Week." "We would like people to be prepared for a long midwinter weekend but we think that's all that's necessary."

The Y2K problem arises out of the fear that older computers programmed to read just the last two digits of a year will read "00" as "1900" rather than "2000." Billions of dollars have been spent to correct the problem.

An Associated Press poll taken earlier this month found only 5 percent of respondents expecting major Y2K problems, down from 11 percent in July. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Even if some of the Y2K scenarios of computer failures do come true, officials said they were prepared to handle any emergencies.

"Hospitals are in the business of preparing for the unexpected," American Hospital Association chairman Fred Brown said on ABC. "I don't think there really will be an inconvenience. The American public can feel very confident if they have go to hospitals."

Koskinen said prisons and power plants had been tested and found to be Y2K compliant.

"The power plants we think have done their Y2K work," Koskinen said. "We do not expect there is any risk."

Most emergency 911 call centers also are prepared. A December survey from the National Emergency Number Association found 98.5 percent saying their equipment was Y2K ready, and others may have been fixed since then.

Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey said she planned to be en route to San Francisco, to show her confidence that the aviation system is prepared for Y2K. She expects no problems on domestic flights, and if there are computer glitches, air controllers can respond and space out takeoffs and departures.

"Air traffic will be safe," she said. "If it wasn't safe, we wouldn't allow the planes to fly. All systems are Y2K compliant. We've tested them from end to end. We're ready."

Garvey said that some airlines may cancel international flights to countries that are not prepared for Y2K, but most overseas destinations favored by Americans will not be among them.

Still, experts caution that while the United States has made extensive preparations for Y2K, some other nations are not as well prepared.

Some countries are going to wait until there are any problems before trying to correct glitches, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre said. The U.S. Energy Department has reported that major systems at Russian nuclear plants should not be affected by Y2K computer bugs, but local residents could lose heat and electricity if some computers fail.

The extent of Y2K preparedness overseas is unclear. Some countries have failed to provide detailed information to the World Bank-funded International Y2K Cooperation Center.

Others will be traveling abroad. Some Russians, for example, will be spending New Year's Eve in Colorado Springs, watching U.S. satellite early warning system against a missile attack.

Hamre said he expected that the satellites will show nothing. The computers that guide the missiles and the satellites are Y2K compliant.

"We think they will be showing nothing because we intend to launch nothing," Hamre said. "If there are problems, it's not going to lead to a launch condition."

Meanwhile, the New York City police force is prepared for the throngs of well-wishers expected to jam Times Square to celebrate New Year's.

"There is no reason to believe there will be any problem," city police commissioner Howard Safir said. "We've been preparing for this for three years. We've been preparing for every contingency."

As for Safir himself, "I'm going to be standing right under the ball when it drops."

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-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 26, 1999

Answers

Errr...is that "Eat, drink and be merry.." as in "...for tomorrow we shall die."?

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), December 27, 1999.

No - it's EAT DRINK AND BE MERRY FOR TOMORROW WE DIET.

-- marylander (cantsay@home.now), December 27, 1999.

Eat drink and be merry, tomorrow we become nuclear dust in a radioactive rainstorm over Russia, and it's Allies.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 27, 1999.