Hi all,

I'm new to the forum. On 12/29 I decided I better find out what this whole y2k thing was about. Seriously. I tend to put things off till the last minute. I know nothing about programming and don't watch TV or read the newspaper. Anyway, I went to Barnes and Noble that night and asked the salesperson if they had any good books on y2k. He pointed me in the direction of their y2k display, and I started reading Time Bomb 2000 and another book called The Millenium Bug. To make a long story short, I freaked!!

The next 2 days I spent buying canned food, dried goods, MRE's, water purifiers, a short wave radio, solar this and that, propane, a gas mask, etc. I took all my money out of the bank (which isn't much) and scared my mother and sister with my new-found knowledge. New Years Eve I hunkered down and waited for TEOTWAWKI, martial law, etc.

I somehow survived the rollover without having a heart attack, and the next day I started learning more and more about y2k. I have relaxed a bit, but am unable to lose the feeling that any minute something serious may happen with a y2k bug that may threaten my very existence. I don't know what information to trust. I look at my stockpile of stuff in my garage and I am too scared to take any of it back. I'm keeping it, just in case. Just in case of what, I don't know.

I have been reading that countries such as Russia are "running on manual" as far as utilities go, and that some other places may be too. That scares me, though I am not sure totally what that means. Some have suggested companies are running off contingency plans and that they are fixing stuff behind the scenes. Does that mean that the national power grid in the USA could also be running on manual? I know this probably sounds dumb to you guys, but I am still learning -- and I am still scared.

Miranda

-- miranda (me@dot.com), January 05, 2000

Answers

Miranda,

The US power grid is not running on "manual". It's not possible to run the grid on "manual". To do so you would need many more qualified operators than exist. Most were long ago laid off and replaced by computers. A lot of money and time was spent to make sure that there wouldn't be any problems with power and it worked.

I have no idea where the idea that Russia is running on "manual" came from either. I've seen many postings here that were mostly suppostion rather than fact.

On the other hand, many countries always run on manual. Most countries outside the western world have power systems that are run by operators doing manual switching - just the way we used to do it 50 years ago. That's one of the reasons a lot of less developed countries didn't have Y2K related power problems. It's also the reason they tend to have more power failures on a regular basis than we do.

Regards, Jim

-- Jim Cooke (JJCooke@yahoo.com), January 05, 2000.

Miranda, you are not stupid or crazy. Just as soon as the pollies saw the lights stayed on during ABC and CNN New Year's coverage they declared victory. If you stay on this board you will run into them for who knows how long. They have some perverse need to 'gloat'. Ignore them, don't panic, and check out the valid information presented here. It is NOT over yet. You were prudent. Kudos.

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

kick my ass, some doomer, for replying to that post...please? I will feel much better.

-- Kyle (fordtbonly@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

Hi Miranda-- I'm glad you asked that question because I was wondering about the same thing. It seems a miracle the power stayed up. And, it is getting more reliable in terms of brownouts in our area. I don't know how they did it but am glad I don't have to worry about teams of human operators eventually conking out from fatigue.

-- Pam (jpjgood@penn.con), January 05, 2000.

It's not important now of course and it all could be just hot air but here was one of the stories I picked up on about Russia running in manual on 11/3/99. I believe I also read something similar about their nuclear facilities, but have not found that yet. Again none of this really matters anymore except from a slightly educational/historical point of view.

Warren

Russia's Power Grid to Switch to Manual for Y2K-Officials (Dow Jones Newswires -- requires paid registration/AP) "Russia's electricity monopoly will shift its huge grid to manual control on Dec. 31 to ensure it avoids 'millennium bug' outages, system officials said Wednesday... Managers at United Energy Systems, the country's electricity monopoly, said at a news conference that they are 95% ready for the date over. The company has checked about 50,000 computer systems which guide the flow of power across the country." UES deputy chairman Alexander Remezov said "We can't give a 100% guarantee that not one of these many systems will fail," and that "the country's vast size will also help, as the date change will hit sparsely populated eastern regions 10 hours before midnight in Moscow, and unforeseen problems may become clear before the date change hits heavily populated populated European areas." Russia's Soviet-Era Technology May Avoid Y2K Computer Problems (Boston Herald/Bloomberg) According to Andrei Barkin, head of the Y2K information center at USAID in Moscow, "We don't expect major failures in Russia... It's still pretty much a Soviet-technology civilization, based on old analogue technology, not digital, which is much less prone to the change of dates... Key organizations moved ahead when the government told them to in January... The situation changed radically... Companies moved from words and statements to tests." The part that ties this into the last piece is this: "RAO Unified Energy Systems, the country's power monopoly, is most prone to computer problems in its financial department, rather than in power supply, Barkin said. RAO Chief Executive Anatoly Chubais said the company doesn't expect major blackouts linked to Y2K. 'I am convinced not one U.S. diplomat will notice any problems,' Chubais said at a briefing today."

The links for the about are from:

(Dow Jones Newswires -- requires paid registration/AP)

http://interactive.wsj.com/bin/login?Tag=/&URI=/archive/retrieve.cgi%253Fid%253DDI-CO-19991103-003697.djml&

and

(Boston Herald/Bloomberg)

http://www.businesstoday.com/techpages/russia11031999.htm

-- warren blim (mr_little@yahoo.com), January 05, 2000.