This is yourdon's Response to:

"Hey! That Smells Like....Like Sulph.....arrrrghhhhhh!!" which was posted in his forum..

It's worse than you think: this data was first presented to either Congressman Horn's or Senator Bennett's committee back in March of 1999, by the U.S. Chemical Safety And Hazard Investigation Board. This is not a case of someone who can be pooh-poohed by the pollys as an extremist (e.g., our beloved Paul Milne) making up numbers -- this comes straight from the agency whose job is to oversee such issues. And the numbers are worse, too: the 66,000 companies that Paul mentioned operate a total of 278,000 sites that manufacture, treat, transport, or dispose of toxic chemicals.

Now, think about the numbers for a minute. Let's assume, just for the heck of it, that every single one of the Fortune 1,000 companies are wholly involved in the toxic-chemical business. Let's see now, this is really tough arithmetic, so I'll have to get out my calculator ... hmmm... scribble, scribble, compute, compute ... aha! that means that the other 65,000 toxic-chemical companies are NOT Fortune-1000 companies! They're SME's -- small-to-medium enterprises.

But what do we know, statistically, about the SME's? Virtually every survey that has been conducted about SME's indicates that approx half of them have no Y2K plans, no intention to remediate anything, and a casual assumption that fix-on-failure will be sufficient. Think about what that means....

It might be enough to make you interested in the contingency plans, to the extent that such things exist, within those 66,000 companies. I've forgotten the details on this now, but there was a big gov't battle several months ago about whether this information could be posted on the Internet so that plain ole' folks like you and me could see what's going on at our next-door toxic chemical site. But the government argued AGAINST releasing such information, arguing that it would provide too much information for terrorists and criminals. I don't know how the situation was finally resolved...

When I first heard this info last spring from Dr. Gerald Poje, who is on the Board of the regulatory group mentioned above, I was stunned. I assumed that the Senate/Congressional Y2K committee to which their report was presented would treat it as an impending crisis. But they didn't. There was a "round-table" discussion last week, on the part of gov't and industry representatives, but we now have only 82 days left.

Dr. Leon Kappelman, who has also been following this issue with great concern, points out that the only state that seems to have done anything proactive about the toxic-chemical situation is California: they have done a "triage" to narrow the scope of the problem to a "mere" 15,000 sites that are sufficiently toxic that they need to be closely monitored. I don't know what the status of that effort is at the moment, but apparently the rest of the states are sound asleep.

Keep in mind, by the way, that all of these figures only involve the U.S. Last time I heard, there were a few other countries scattered around the world, roughly 180 I think, and you'd better believe that they've got toxic chemical sites, too. I suppose I have no reason to be more concerned about possible toxic-chemical accidents in Canada or England or Australia than I do about the U.S., but what about Mexico (the border of which is roughly 400 miles south of where I write these words), or all of Central/South America, or India, or China, or the African continent?

No doubt the pollys will find some way to blow this one off, too, accusing the U.S. Chemical Safety And Hazard Investigation Board of hysterical fear-mongering. Maybe those who find themselves living next door to a toxic-chemical site can arrange a house-swapping deal with the pollys, so that everyone can be happy. After all, if we've got pollys who are determined to be aboard an aircraft on New Year's Eve, I would imagine that there would also be a crowd of pollys who would want to demonstrate their total confidence by moving their family into a house next door to a hydrogen cyanide plant...

Sorry ... I don't mean to rant like this, and I don't really wish any harm to pollys or anyone else. But this is a situation that's just plain nuts -- and the government has known about it, in the form of blunt, unambiguous testimony from experts, for at least six months. If ever there was any indication of the total state of denial about Y2K risks, I think this one is the prime candidate...

Ed

P.S. Perhaps Diane or Linkmeister could track down the URL for the report that was presented by the safety board, which is probably posted on the Senate or Congressional Y2K sites. I've got a copy somewhere in my pile of Y2K papers, and it's a couple hundred pages long. I suspect that it's available as a PDF file...

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), October 10, 1999.

================

The significance of the fact that the overwhelming majority of these small chemical companies are planning to fix on failure is wasted on pollyannas. No potential harm is worth being concerned over.

And -beeks- will read this and continue to claim that Yourdon has 'nothing' to say anymore. Even when Yourdon says the situation is so bad that it is 'worse than you think' and just plain 'nuts'.

Soon, the bks's and brocks and egans and their ilk will be gone. Victims of their own big brains.

And people like flint will ask, " At exactly what moment will the first one blow up and how many ounces of toxic material will spill? Is it directly attributable to Y2K if it blows up because a man 'panics' to run home to his family and accidentally hits a switch that releases toxic material? And what constitutes toxic? Enough to kill a butterfly or an elephant?

This is the kind of ridiculous pollyanna nonsense that will continue to flow until they are consumed by their own stupidity.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001YOj

--Paul Milne "If you live within 5 miles of a 7-11, you're toast"

...and they called themselves "GI's"...(snicker)...

Vindicated Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), June 26, 2000

Answers

Where's the URL for the thread with this exchange?

-- (??@??.??), June 26, 2000.

Here you go.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), June 26, 2000.

Sorry doom-bunnies, at some point you have to understand you plain ignorant. To assume those "right at the heart of the issue", are blind to what say, fatass Ed Yourdon sitting thousands of miles away in his bunker can see as plain as his face, is plain ignorant. Ya Ed, many were too dam stupid, too dam apathetic to even give a crap if they died cause they decided fix-on-failure was an appropriate response to little if ANY risk from some dumb-ass Y2k hysteria. So stupid in fact, they would also risk their families lives, yep makes sense, not.

You major clue Y2k was HANDLED, was the lack of exodus, a lack of whistleblowers. Unfortunately when one has already made-up one's mind, one does not want to be bothered with anything which might upset this condition, as Andy Ray's Quote series is doing to this day.

As a substitute whistleblower, the doomies were quick to cut/paste all the wonderful SPIN from all them "neutral sources without agendas" they think represents the news. In hindsight, few of these dumps from the authorities showed anything but just how clueless thay are as well. To someone IN REALITY, this is obvious, but to the Get- Its, this is never seen.

It takes effort to even respond to a doomer, they are that dam DENSE. They "think" they got-it-all-figured-out. Selective intelligence,,,Y2k left little room to justify their stupidity this time, better luck in your next life-wasting adventure doom-morons. One thing you are correct about, YOU are doomed operating the way you do.

Like Eddie liked to say,,,It is already too late. For him maybe, lol.

-- Dr. Science (whatisth@tsmell.here), June 26, 2000.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Wake me when the snickering ends.

-- (nemesis@awol.com), June 26, 2000.

There you go again Andy Ray, quoting trolls and one time posters. Never heard of this guy, Ed Yourdon, in fact I doubt that is his real name. Probably just some 13 year old pimple face laughing at the fact that people took him seriously.

-- 15 year old pimpleface (need@some.clearasil), June 26, 2000.

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-- (I CUNT @ HEAR. YOU!!!), June 27, 2000.

Chemical Safety Board Presents Y2K Report to Senate Special Committee

http://www.csb.gov/news/1999/n990305.htm

-- (03@05.1999), June 27, 2000.