Y2K malfunction at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant

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(sorry if this has been posted already)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal officials say a Y2K-related computer malfunction at the Oak Ridge nuclear weapons plant in Tennessee caused no operational problems and was corrected within hours.

John Gilligan, the DOE's top computer expert, said Monday the problem involved a computer that tracks nuclear material as to its weight and type. He said the actual accounting of material was not affected.

Officials at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory initially declined to provide details of the malfunction, first reported Sunday, because it involved classified activities.

Gilligan said the Oak Ridge incident was the only Y2K problem affecting ``mission critical'' systems at Energy Department facilities nationwide during the New Year's rollover, although there were ``about a dozen'' minor glitches.

All of the failures ``tended to be minor and easily fixed,'' he told reporters. He said there are about 200,000 computer systems at DOE facilities, including the three weapons labs. The Oak Ridge facility has 260 systems.

The Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge makes warhead components for the MX missile system and is the primary uranium storage site for the nation's nuclear arsenal.

-- Risteard Mac Thomais (uachtaran@ireland.com), January 04, 2000

Answers

When Psychops Fails in Journalism: Why didn't AP just draw a map to the dang place then! Instructions to Oak Ridge from Northern/Southern Borders and JFK? Sheez.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 04, 2000.

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