I have never posted here before but have been reading for several weeks now, soaking it all in. I moved from a major city, Chicago, to the a farm in the country back in Feruary '99, based on my own research and conclusions regarding the effects of y2k which vary from 3-8. I simply don't know, I am not an expert, nor do I believe the expert know.

My question is this: Other than the Gartner report on the frequency of y2k related problem peaking in the 3Q of '00, are there any other sources for this type of imformation? In other words will it happen fast or slow or not at all. I promised my DGI wife that if things were okay in January then we could move back to the city. She is a wonderful woman to have followed and supported me through this widely perceived lunacy solely based on her love and belief in me, and I would sorely hate to break a promise to her. I might have to do this if nothing huge happens in January yet small failures begin and start adding up.

I am worried on several fronts, first that y2k is 7+ almost immediately, or a 4+ in a slow and painful manner (death by a thousand cuts) that would not show itself in January, and that the spin and pollies are right and that my own conclusions are wrong. But most of all I don't want to risk the safety of my family in any way. That is why I am here in the country, which I am starting to enjoy in many ways. Its much cheaper to live here and healthier. I was being priced out of the city. Anyway, here I am, yes at some cost, but we are safe and prepared more or less. The move has made me question many, many things about our culture and modern society and agriculture. If y2k is bad none of this matters other than survival. I guess I am just a concerned and sometimes hopeful/wavering GI that is seeking any clue, hint of what will happen, how bad it will be, etc.

Again I know that nobody knows what will happen and when but are there any clues/studies other than Gartner's that give hints?

As an aside, I value this forum most for its view into other people's life like my own. I hope this finds everybody in health.

Tom

-- Tom (timbereyes@usa.net), September 17, 1999

Answers

I am prepared for the "pollys" to be right. I am also prepared for a 3 month disruption. I cannot see it being a nightmarish collapse either fast or slow. Too much remediation HAS BEEN DONE. While we know we are being told lies from some, it cannot all be lies and you cannot spend hundreds of millions of dollars on remediation of this issue and not fix a hell of alot of stuff.

I dont think we will lose power, but for $150 I have a Kero-Sun heater. I dont think we will have shortages of food for any length period of time, but I was quickly able to amass 3 months worth of food so I did it and now I can forget about it. I have never allowed myself to be lulled into complacency for anything but I also dont belong to the camp that thinks everything the government says is a lie.

I really think Y2k will affect us in different ways, some might not even notice it but its easier to stock up and buy some items that create a safety net (lots of batteries, water containers, kero heaters, sterno/sterno stoves, etc..) so that I dont have to wonder if someone is lying to me about the fixes being done. Lies or not, fixes or not, I am prepared for a big hit from any disaster, unlike 99% of society. For that reason, I sleep well at night.

-- stasher (stasher@stashit.com), September 17, 1999.

My money is on an initial 4-5, with the "global economy" going down the tubes the first 6 months of 2000, leading eventually to war.

I don't see Y2K as a sudden December panic and 1/1/00 blowout. I do expect a moderate panic and moderate blowout, but I'm much more concerned about the global "debt bomb" and "war", than all the computers crashing at once. People can "go manual" for a while, but eventually, enough of a breakdown will probably occur to make desperate people do desperate things.

-- Anonymous999 (Anonymous999@Anonymous999.xxx), September 17, 1999.

I think that a lot of the fast vs slow scenarios depend on the wildcard of Y2K -- the embedded systems that govern power generation, water filtration, etc. If these go bonkers and stay bonkers on Jan 1, it may be a fast track to Infomagicland.

If the banking system collapses, that will take the wind out of the sails mighty fast, too. And that could even occur today if enough people decided to call the fractional reserve banking system's bluff and ask for their money in cash.

If the above, one way or another, holds up, then its probably going to be more like Yourdon's "one year of uncertainty, a decade of depression" scenario. From which we may never fully recover....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), September 17, 1999.

Speaking before the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, the U.S. central banker said he was confident that the risk of any widespread breakdown to critical business infrastructure from the computer bug was "negligible."

That's from Alan Greenspan, he's not what I would call a liar.

I have trouble *seeing* the future. I don't *want* anything bad to happen but I want to be prepared *if and when* something does happen. Everytime I set a preparedness goal and reach it I get this feeling like why are you doing this? It doesn't help much when someone like Greenspan comes along and says something like this. Part of me ( and today its an overwhealming part) wants to believe him and stop preparing. Then the other part sees my children and wants to set a new goal and move on.

I hope the right part wins.

-- Sonja (No way@feds are.watching), September 17, 1999.

Believing Greenspan's rosey assessment and preparing for the possibility that he may be wrong are not mutually exclusive events. Don't worry, be happy, do both.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), September 17, 1999.

If you wish/can disregard the factor of human reaction. You will find the the y2k comuter part of the equasion will becoe known on or around the 2nd of February. This is because the main frames will be forced to sum up a month's worth of business under the 2000 date line for the first time.

The embeded systems are the killers of a BITR fantasy. An embeded system controlls real equipment, sometimes very fast moving equipment, real valves, motors... And when they halt the industrial process in mid stride..Things are destroyed! And when the industrial section suffers damage, it takes awhile to repair it, months, or years...And the embeded systems will be reacting well into the 2000-2001 as they each reach the limits of their internal clocks (which may or may not be the actual date lines of real time-exterior wise) But the time at which it was calibrated at at the time of being energized ad check out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_a_bunker@forty.feet), September 17, 1999.

Tom,

Good question.

It sounds like you've already done your initial preps but here's a good link to do a risk assessment and help decide what your own level of initial preparation should be: http://www.y2knewswir e.com/riskmatrix.htm

Of course, once you've made your initial preparations, then what? As you said, nobody knows what will happen. I'm facing a similar dilemma as you: I moved out of the city, but I'm not really happy where I am , and if Y2K is a total non-event, I'll probably be looking for a new place to live by the middle of January. But what if it's not too bad at first and then gets worse? What if it's real bad right off the bat? How long do I wait to return to "normal" life again?

Since you've already done your own analysis of the situation to be between a 3-8 and have (presumably) made initial preparations based on that estimate, I would suggest you start to develop contingency plans for various scenarios as we approach, then pass the rollover. For example:

-If it's only a 3, when will you move? Where will you go? -How about if it's a 6; Will you stay put or go? -What if your estimates were off and it's a 0? What about a 10? (you may decide not to prep for a level 10, but if it happens, you'll still have to deal with it).

-How will you deal with unprepared beggars that show up at your house? (Including relatives you haven't heard from in years who want to invite themselves over if anything does happen - I've already gotten calls from some of these).

-What if your bank goes belly-up and it takes five years to get payment on that FDIC insured CD you bought, or what if you just lose it outright? Were you planning on using that money next year?

etc., etc. , etc.

As you develop your contingency plans, continue to gather data and re- assess the situation. If your estimates of the severity change, you can change your contingency plans (and current preparation levels) accordingly. My biggest hope is that if things do get bad, the internet will stay up so that I can continue to monitor the situation at this site and other locations, then alter my plans accordingly as the situation unfolds based on the information received.

Something I often use to help with planning are the six steps of planning:

1) Set goals.

2) Gather all available information.

3) Develop a comprehensive plan.

4) Implement the plan.

5) Monitor the plan.

6) Make changes where appropriate or necessary.

Of course, it's not a clean cut process and there is overlap on some of the steps. A few notes about this:

Steps 1 and 2 often take place simultaneously. You may set goals that you discover are unrealistic once you begin to gather information, so you may have to go back and modify your original goal.

The biggest source of failure I've had in past projects is almost always directly attributable to poor performance in step 2 - Gather all available information! ("Oh, if I had only known THAT before I had ________!!![fill in the blank]). By the way, this is what makes planning for Y2K so difficult because there is so much contradictory information out there.

This is a process, since circumstances change continuously, good planning requires a constant loop from steps 5 and 6 (monitor and change) back to steps 1-3 (to develop a revised plan).

Gathering available information is also an ongoing process, since it is how you monitor your initial plan once it goes into effect.

It sounds like you've already done steps 1-4, and are currently at step 5. You are now monitoring and continuing to develop your original plan by seeking additional information so that you can develop further contigency plans. These are simply new "alternate" plans that you may utilize if and when you decide that a change to your existing plan is necessary.

Hope some of this helps. As you said, nobody KNOWS what will happen. That means everyone needs to plan for themselves according to their own "best guess" of how bad it will be, their individual risk profile and their own unique circumstances.

Finally, to answer your original question, my own best GUESS to what will happen is that little noticable disruption will occur prior to rollover due to public apathy. After rollover, immediate disruptions in the 3-4 range which escalates into 7-9 over a period of time (several weeks to years).

-- Clyde (clydeblalock@hotmail.com), September 17, 1999.

In January -- things will just be STARTING. Let the little wifey move back to the city; you stay put.

-- A (A@AisA.com), September 17, 1999.

"Will it happen fast or slow or not at all?"

All of the above.

Some showstoppers around the 2000 turn... domestically... more internationally. In someplaces... business as usual.

Then the thousand cuts time period begins, first six months or so. I'd stay out of Chicago until we see what the domestic economy, et. al., is doing. Should be pretty clear by April.

And then, everyone--except the dot gov and dot mils--forgets that the terrorists and cyber-terrorists could cause real problems that arent technically caused by Y2K, but are quite related. The effect is the same.

THAT is an even bigger unknown, that needs to be factored in to your Y2K prep-mix.

Diane

Interesting snips...

Interview: Kind on Monitoring Y2K Millennium Bug--ICC Information Coordination Center (USIS Washington File)

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

[snip]

Q: And how long do you plan to operate?

A: From the 28th of December through the millennium until we are confident that any Y2K-related disruptions have stabilized.

[snip]

Q: Are you expecting serious problems on January 1, 2000?

A: I don't think anyone really knows what's going to happen. If someone tells you what will happen with certainty, then they aren't credible. The reason we're doing the things that we are is that there is a potential here. We think we've followed good remediation and testing procedures here in the federal government, and we hope that's been done in other organizations, in industries, in other nations. It's prudent to be prepared. We're prepared to collect the information, assess it and try and recognize the early trends. These could be good as well as bad, and we're hoping they're good.

The essence of the problem is time compression. Multiple sectors could be affected in a short period of time. Normally, when you have a disaster it affects only one organization sector or geographical area. The potential here is for multiple effects. As time goes on, the more work gets done, the more testing gets done, things look better. And we shall continue checking and testing, but it's still appropriate to have the capability to monitor the situation when the time comes and to provide clear reports to decision-makers, the press and citizens throughout the world.

###

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), September 17, 1999.

I know a guy who is assessing (that's right ASSESSING) the Saudi oil loading ports, and he reports MASSIVE Y2k failures. Draw your own conclusion.

-- Dog Gone (layinglow@rollover.now), September 17, 1999.

Dog Gone, is he predicting massive Y2K failures in Saudi Arabia, or observing them now?

-- Wondering (wondering@curious.com), September 17, 1999.

Disruptions are beginning slowly, they will have a serious spike at the rollover and then damage will continue to accrue slowly for awhile after that.

I don't have any way of accurately determining how serious the problems will be but I am expecting something worse than a 5 yet better than an 8. I am less optimistic than I was a few months ago because of several factors. The information posted on this forum has been a net downer for me including some of the poly info.

An example of a poly argument that doesn't make me feel better would be the argument that most of the problems will happen prior to 2000. In looking back at all the systems which we have repaired for our organization it appears that only a small minority (perhaps 5%) of our Y2k problems would have occurred as "look-ahead" problems while the majority would have occurred some time after rollover. Virtually nothing would have been visible on January 1, 2000 but we would have been in deep stuff January 3 had we done nothing or even not enough. We would have to be at least 90% complete at the rollover to hope to dig out by the end of January.

Another factor that bothers me is my first hand knowledge of some of my peers bending the truth regarding their readiness. I don't know how pervasive that problem is but I do know that some folks are saying what the public wants to hear. In some cases it may be to prevent panic but in some cases I think it is because the severity of an organizations plight has yet to be honestly reported to its own management.

It may be that my current employer is somewhat unique in not having a lot of look-ahead Y2k problems but think of these specific applicatons which I programmed in previous organizations: Demand Deposit Accounting for banks, what percentage of this "checking account software" looks ahead? General Ledger for banks, retail, utilities (I've done them all). What percentage of your G/L code looks ahead and therefore has been field tested live with your sparkling new Y2k repaired version? Sales Audit for retail organization, is there anything in this application that would make you think it is primarily involved with the future or is it most likely to be used for transactions that have already occured? The banks have to balance their days receipts through some sort of proof and transit system, does that have a lot of code looking ahead or is it mostly looking at transactions that have already occured?

I submit to you fine folks that most of the problems are,and will be, in the software that counts the beans and we typically don't count the beans before they have been gathered. When you are told that most of the problems will occur prior to Y2k that is because most of the remediated code is anticipate to be installed by then. However, if that code fails in production it is most likely to fail looking at current data or looking back and it won't get that opportunity before the rollover beyond the opportunities that were afforded during testing.

-- Woe Is Me (wim@doom.gloom), September 17, 1999.

is he predicting massive Y2K failures in Saudi Arabia, or observing them now?

Predicting them, based on initial testing. It was not causing the Van Nuys type of incident. Part of the problem is that the Saudi oil loading facilities are quite modern, heavily computerized, and with very limited manual operation possible.

This guy is no slouch. He will be meeting with project and government officials next Monday from the entire Middle East to discuss the situation. When I hear from him, unless he needs to keep it confidential, I'll share his insights. But as of right now, his opinion is that no oil leaves Saudi ports 106 days from now.

-- Dog Gone (layinglow@rollover.now), September 17, 1999.

Tom, I think you may have screwed up by promising to go back to Chicago if January is OK. It could very well be a slow process. Nobody knows. You could be wishing you were back in the country by the end of February. Why the hell would you want to move back to a big city anyway? If Y2K is a bump (not likely IMHO), what about all the rest of the possible catastrophies like terrorism and losing utilities. To me, cities are just not safe places to live. You're dependent on a massive infrastructure that is just too fragile.

-- (rcarver@citiessuck.com), September 17, 1999.

We may not have a good idea of how serious the problem is until Feb.or March. Many companies are stockpiling supplies and manufacturing components and these may last for a few weeks. Also, I believe many companies will not reveal their problems immediately. However, if first quarter earnings are being effected, they will have to announce their problems in Feb. or March to avoid law suits from share holders. One important indicator will be the price of oil, gasoline, etc. If prices are not increasing by Feburary, that will not an indication that y2k will not be that bad.

-- Danny (dcox@ix.netcom.com), September 17, 1999.

Some places may suffer immediate failures (water, power, etc.). In much of the United States, however, we will probably muddle through until the domino effect gets to us. Here on Kaua'i, we have a single electric company to worry about, but most of our food and ALL of our fuel is imported by barge...over long supply lines. We could easily go 1-2 months before TEITRAH. Long recession/depression to follow.

On the world scene, a posting above predicts perhaps 6 months of steady degredation, followed by war. Unfortunately, this is also a viable scenario.

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), September 17, 1999.

I would guess that if by the end of January problems are not serious, or have been mild enough to have been covered up, then the worst from Y2K should be an economic recession from people using up their inventories, the loss of investment of the money used to "fix" the problem, the pulling out of foreign capital from the US as people no longer need that "safer haven." "Where will the jobs/opportunities be?" should become the question, I suppose. For the highly trained and skilled, I'm guessing that would be the city. The Great Depression might have some lessons to teach us in that case, though I'm afraid my knowledge is relatively shallow on the subject.

I also, think, on the other hand, that the threat of nuclear war is not over, since proliferation of nuclear weapons among nations who don't have that much to lose, and who might even accept MAD (mutually assured destruction) in order to get revenge on their enemies, continues.

A promise is a promise, unless she changes her mind, though.

-- S. Kohl (kohl@hcpd.com), September 17, 1999.

Tom,

My short reply is that it would have been better if you had promised her that if things were okay in March, then you could move back to the city. Of course, that reply does not help resolve the dilemma.

If electrical power, water supplies, waste disposal, phones, oil refineries, petroleum and natural gas pipelines, and banking all continue to operate smoothly into January, it may seem as if all is well. At the same time, railroads may be misrouting freight cars, JIT inventory systems may by bottlenecking, and international crude oil shipments may be dropping, and you may not see reports thereof on the nightly news.

The difficulties that we now have in trying to appraise the situation may get worse next January. When you consider the effort and emphasis that is already being placed on avoiding "panic", and if we then are lucky enough not to have any massive "show stopper" problems, you can imagine the efforts that may be made to avoid panic by concealing and/or downplaying events that may then gradually be building into serious problems. January may be too soon to tell what is in store for us.

Jerry

-- Jerry B (skeptic76@erols.com), September 17, 1999.

I have given up on the 3-7 range. Right now I think we are in the 1- 2 range (lots of money spent on non-productive remediation, stockpiling, people getting ready). If there are massive 10%+ failures on 01/01/2000, we will go straight to an 8-10. The stock market would crash, oil and gas prices would skyrocket, panic would set in fast. Can anyone out there tell me how we could have a 4,5 or 6? Just like the computers themselves, y2k is shaping up to be a zero or one problem.

-- Bill (y2khippo@yahoo.com), September 17, 1999.