I'm two for three so far.

"No panic" (predicted almost a year ago). CORRECT.

"No martial law on the 28th or pre-rollover" (I'll call this CORRECT though we have a couple of days to go. Security on alert in NYC and DC doesn't count as martial law!)

"No crash before rollover in markets (correct) but expected serious correction (wrong, so we'll call entire prediction WRONG)".

Unlike Flint, who believes the worst will be "over in three days" (we should know whether Flint was right about Y2K by mid-January), I expect a big-time mess with the worst developing over months (cf Yourdon, Lord, Infomagic).

Here are early warnings (events) to look out for. I am placing these in a "polly context" - that is, if they happen this way, I will breathe a sigh of relief in each case.

NOTE: these are NOT predictions, simply criteria for early analysis of likely, long-term Y2K impacts. If all of them occur, I will downgrade my own expectations somewhat around the end of January (probably to a 6).

1. Very intermittent worldwide power outages at rollover (localized, no more than a dozen or so measurable ones across 200 countries).

2. Power grids remaining stable worldwide throughout the first week of January (ie, no more than another half-dozen localized problems, with all of them coming under obvious control quickly).

3. No more than one Chernobyl nuclear accident worldwide due to embeddeds (will know by end of first week of January).

4. No more than two Bhopal-scale chemical accidents worldwide due to embeddeds (will know by end of first week of January).

5. 95% of world oil industry clearly operational (may not know before end of January through end of February, depending on spin and credibility of data).

6. 95% of world banking system operational and all world market trading systems functioning smoothly (may not know before end of February through end of April, depending on spin and credibility of data).

7. Telecom service 95% uninterrupted in U.S. and other advanced countries. No country entirely down for more than one week (should know by middle to end of January).

8. No detectable biological, chemical or nuclear terrorist attacks during rollover (should know by end of first week of January). This doesn't rule out subsequent risk but will be encouraging.

9. No more than two dangerous urban water-sewage collapses worldwide (water unavailable for more than three days).

What am I missing?

Note: I assume other sectors (for instance, shipping and agriculture, will be reasonably okay if the conditions above obtain). Since I still expect an 8.5, I will consider "one Chernobyl" to be GOOD NEWS globally, even though it will be very bad news for many fellow human beings. And so it goes.

This is not contradictory to an earlier post of mine about, "by when can we assume Y2K impacts will be minor?" That will take much longer (generally May to June, 2000).

This post focuses primarily on, "when can we breathe INITIAL (early warning) sighs of relief (or not) with respect to various sectors worldwide?"

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 28, 1999

Answers

Oh, wish wish wish! Reading that was a nice exhalation. Waiting, hoping to have a huge sigh of relief at the end of January ...

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 28, 1999.

I'll be glad to go along with this. I expect considerably worse. And yes, while I expect the worst to be over in three days, I don't mean to imply that *everything* will be over in 3 days. I simply mean that the recovery period will start then. I expect the recovery to be in full swing for months.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 28, 1999.

HOLY SMOKES!!

Flint and BD in agreement again!

And who says this isn't a remarkable time we live in :o)

-- Brian (imager@home.com), December 28, 1999.

BigDog,

What is your prediction on the response of the U.S. herd this Friday, when reports from around the world (places other than the U.S.) of power outages, telecom outages, chemical plant explosions, water and sewer plant shut downs, nuclear plant shut downs, burning cities, etc. come pouring into the U.S. between 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM, EST?

-- GoldReal (GoldReal@aol.com), December 28, 1999.

I kind of like that model put forth by one of the esteemed posters that basically said we can eliminate one numerical unit from the 1-10 scale per week of the post CDC. For example, after the first week we MAY be able to exclude level 10 as plausible. After 10 weeks, we can all go polly (in total shock).

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), December 28, 1999.

What is your prediction on the response of the U.S. herd this Friday, when reports from around the world (places other than the U.S.) of power outages, telecom outages, chemical plant explosions, water and sewer plant shut downs, nuclear plant shut downs, burning cities, etc. come pouring into the U.S. between 10:00 AM and 6:00 PM, EST?
GoldReal, if this happens I will stay home locked away from the TOTAL CHAOS that will follow.

-- Dan G (thepcguru@hotmail.com), December 28, 1999.

During the last 10 years (at least) our society has been warned about the coming collapse of the world financial system. There is no way out of this. Debts are ALWAYS paid. Our dream machine will go into reverse as the unprecedented debts are paid through forced liquidations.

THERE IS NOTHING WITHIN THE ABILITY OF MANKIND THAT CAN PREVENT THIS DEVASTATING CORRECTION! History points to this. Time will again prove this true........soon.

-- earl (ejrobill@pcpostal.com), December 28, 1999.

I'd like to humbly suggest that number 7 be ammended to "no advanced country be down for more than a week..." I suspect that some less developed countries will be down substantially longer...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), December 28, 1999.

Dave,

I'll suggest that the period before we can remove the upper limit of Y2K impacts from possibility will be considerably more than one week. Maybe at a minimum one business quarter between threat reductions, starting Jan 1 2001.

If you look at some of the most severe scenarios, excluding those which have the grid down on 01/01/00 and never coming back, all seem to read that the real problems don't start piling up until the end of the second quarter. That means we might get a real idea of how bad things are by next summer. I don't know how many people can take another six months of Y2K uncertainty.

But on the bright side, that means that there are possibly six months more for getting ready for the worst.

WW

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

Ok, I'm in for some bodacious yet dubious portal viewing. I'd like to see these happen as the worse case scenarios, rather that best case. I hope none of this human nature napalm ignites. I'd like to think Seattle is just being doomish. That the terrorist nations will give up and go away within a week, and all our nets will go unharmed. That there probably isn't anything to all this Jihad stuff. I sure hope so, you know?

-- michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), December 28, 1999.

GoldReal -- IF those reports come in, I expect people to stay close to their homes (heck, I think most are going to do this anyway). There won't be IMMEDIATE panic UNLESS we get some hard downs in the U.S. (for instance, NY or Atlanta or Chicago go down power-wise or SOCAL loses water or major terrorist attack, etc). If we're moderately "ok", foreign problems will be spun at high speed for first couple of weeks -- nerves domestically will rise but probably not uncontrollably. Again, everything depends on what happens in "Peoria" IMO.

Dave and WW -- Good reminder but devolution, as WW points out, is longer-term issue. In fact, it could be that I shouldn't/won't downgrade from 8.5 to 6 at end of January, even if all this "good news" happens.

Mad Monk -- Agree.

Michael -- Sure, I hope this is worst-case too.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 28, 1999.