If so, why was that last message deleted? And, perhaps a better question, why was what looked like an important post deleted with hardly enough time to confirm it?

-- Jim Osborne (osborne@umr.edu), December 31, 1999

Answers

I think the message was a fake. Power did go out in one sector of NZ for about 15 minutes but it was weather related. High winds according to monitoring site.

-- howard (roark@not.now), December 31, 1999.

Thought I was trippin' for a minute...one minute it was there, the next, NOT! Swear to god I though I was loosin' it! It was posted by "our" Diane too...Whats up Sysops?!?

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan101st@Aol.com), December 31, 1999.

For what it's worth, as of 10:55 am CST, ABC News just showed updates from New Zealand and the electricity seemed to be working. And the offical NZ rollover website still claims that they are not having any problems. I also was wondering why the original post was deleted.

-- streamer (streamer@aol.com), December 31, 1999.

I still have it open in another window, but it's gone now...I just thought it was rather strange that it was deleted in seconds, long before anyone could have had time to confirm or deny it...

-- Jim Osborne (osborne@umr.edu), December 31, 1999.

Got this a few minutes ago from an associate of mine...

I was monitoring the top 500 New Zealand domains when they rolled over this AM.....status went from 0% of all domains down to 2% almost instantly when they rolled over!! Its held steady since then...

-- Marc Schamallion (gecko@carolina.rr.com), December 31, 1999.

It looked like it was posted from Diane, however, I doubt she would use the "wink" emoticon if the report were true. The sysops probably deleted it because the IP was wrong for her.

-- ariZONEa (here@work.doh!), December 31, 1999.

Marc - can you explain your information about the domains?

Also, the weather report in NZ indicated 23 mph winds - I highly doubt that would knock the power out!

Spin, spin, spin...

-- dizzy (spinning@y2kspin.com), December 31, 1999.

It was posted by a "NOTDiane Squire"...

I can't let that kind of post stand...sorry. Repost with a name not so close to a regular poster.

Mike aka Stealth

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-- Mike Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), December 31, 1999.

It may just be that lady Di.

Being on the west coast Saw some info. on the earlier power outage and then saw it posted. So she just decided to clean it up.

No big deal!!!

-- d........ (dciinc@aol.com), December 31, 1999.

There have been two power outages in New Zealand.

The first one occured at Morrinsville in the North Island when power was lost to a water treatment station due to high winds. This happened before the rollover, and further information is available on the NZ Y2K site. (Sorry I don't have the address to supply a link).

The second outage occured at 00:41 am, shortly after the rollover, and less than 30 minutes after I had reported to the electricity industry site that all was well. I was just getting ready for bed when the lights went out. Naturally I went outside to see how extensive it was, and the only light I could see anywhere was a row of lights on top of the dam associated with our power station, and some car headlights. So off to bed in the dark, and trying to think about what we had missed, what had failed at such an odd time, and why.

When I arrived at work this morning, I expected to find that the grid had failed, and we would have a busy day holding everything together. But instead, what had happened was that someone had sabotaged the line from the power station to our small town, and power was restored within an hour. It was someone's sick idea of a new years joke.

Malcolm

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), December 31, 1999.