THE NEWS DIGEST Thursday, December 23, 1999 UTILITIES ADD WORKERS TO EASE Y2K FEARS Utilities across the country have worked for years to prevent Y2K glitches from shutting them down this New Year's Eve are now facing thereal Y2K problem: Getting the message out that service outages that nightwon't be linked to the Y2K bug. Detroit Edison and Consumers Energy know that anywhere from 2,000 to 5,000 homes in southeastern Michigan will be without power this New Year's Eve. They know because that's how many homes are in the dark on an average winter night, and they've reviewed the power outage records for New Year's Eves going back nearly a decade. There will be outages even if the weather is good, and on New Year's Eve you can always count on someone driving his or her car into a utility pole or shooting out an insulator, said Charles MacInnis, spokesman for Consumers Energy in Jackson. Those fears weren't helped by NBC's made-to-terrify TV movie "Y2K -- the Movie," which included a scene where workers in a nuclear power plant died in the control room during a live feed. This New Year's Eve, Consumers Energy will use its live satellite feed in its Jackson control center to reassure customers that workers are alive and fine, he said. The feeds will be picked up by broadcasters who can transmit the information to customers. Utilities across the country are also beefing up their staffs and coming up with detailed plans designed to reassure customers that any service glitches this New Year's Eve are not necessarily linked to the Y2K bug. Should a crisis arise, the power companies have developed detailed emergency plans to deal with problems. For instance, the companies will be able to manually coordinate the electricity being carried over the system and generated at the power plants. The plans also consider scenarios in which other utilities -- such as the water or phone companies -- have Y2K problems. (Detroit Free-Press 12/23)

-- B Andres (BMAONE23@aol.com), December 28, 1999

Answers

I just feel so fine now knowing that it will be the drunks that cause the problems, what happened to the terrorist plots or the Christian cults?

-- Lost (ican'tbelieveit@hotmail.com), December 28, 1999.

so... what are the utilities telling their workers... this article doesn't say.

-- (...@.......), December 28, 1999.

So these companies all have a normal amount of gliches, of course we all know this. However, here is the wildcard. While these companies are having their "normal," gliches, what will be the total result when you add these "Normal," gliches to those that are caused by the Y2K problems that some or possibly all will be having?

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 28, 1999.

> and on New Year's Eve you can always count on someone driving his or her car into a utility pole ***or shooting out an insulator,***

One of the things I truly love about my country! Even though it's antisocial and dangerous AND irresponsible, you gotta love a place that PLANS on having some yahoo shoot out an insulator or two.

LOL,

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.com), December 28, 1999.

They plan on the absolute odds that of all the yahoos out busting caps to make noise for the new year, one or more is going to just happen to be drunkenly aimed at a power pole. And better hope he does get an insulator and not a transfomer.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), December 28, 1999.