You are a very important person. A cop or a computer tech, a nurse or a national guardsman.

You have been asked/ordered to work the Rollover.

At breakfast time 12-31-99 USA, it is already past midnight in the Orient. How bad would the news out of Tokyo, Hong Kong, Sydney, Aukland, etc. have to be before you say;

A: "H**L no, I won't go."

B: "I'm headed for the hils RFN."

Same questions, but now it's lunch time in USA, which makes it after midnight in Russia, the Middle East and the Holy Land.

-- gov comm (On@Duty.mil), November 21, 1999

Answers

The folks who are being asked to work the Rollover are likely to be in the office or computer room from December 29th onward. So that changes the question a little: how bad would it have to be before they get up from their desk and head out the door?

As I noted on another thread, one of the main reasons for doing this would be concern for one's family and children. So, if you saw news about city-wide blackouts, or an explosion at a toxic-chemical site somewhere in India, you might think to yourself, "Hmmm... I wonder if the lights will go out here in Podunk, where I live? I wonder if those guys at the hydrogen-cyanide plant, a couple miles down the road, really did a thorough job of testing their systems? Hmmm... I think maybe I'd better go home, put the family in the car, and head for the hills..."

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (ed@yourdon.com), November 21, 1999.

Only in the very largest cities could I imagine a rapid deterioration of law and order during the first day or two, even if all utilities went down.

-- Bill Byars (billbyars@softwaresmith.com), November 21, 1999.

Bill, are you kidding me? Only in the very largest of cities could you imagine all law and order breaking down w/in one to two days, even if all the utilities went down?

Do you remember NYC's blackout in July of 1977? Only the POWER was out, and only for about 15 HOURS and all hell broke loose. It is true that this kind of thing is always exacerbated in hot weather and they were having a scorcher that year, but what the hell? Have you *imagined* if there were WIDESPREAD failures of the power systems, water, phone, etc? Whew, I don't even want to go there! Not only that, but Y2K has occupied the very tiniest corner of most people's minds for the last 6 months AT LEAST, so the reaction would be more immediate than you think, given utilities failures.

Pray for weather cold enough to deter most of the looters and general lawlessness should this happen. Unfortunately, here in the Lone Star State, we are having a warmer than usual November.

-- preparing (preparing@home.com), November 21, 1999.

Right on, Ed ! I think the guy in the office might be busy/working; BUT , his wife/children who watch the news will have NO hesitation calling " daddy " at the office with the " Please come home ... NOW !" Eagle

-- Hal Walker (e999eagle@freewwweb.com), November 21, 1999.

I'll be their. And so will 99.9% of the other officers! Tuck tail and run? Aint gona happen amigo!

-- Pl (SWAT@U.com), November 21, 1999.

During the floods of 93 in the midwest, our city lost all water services for 12 days, no potable (drinkable water) for two weeks. We also have lost electricity for as long as 4 days (Large outages for majority of the city). We had little or no problems at all with people going on rampages, looting, rioting or anything similar. It was summer in both instances. Dont know if all cities would be as lucky.

-- Suzy (suzy@nowhere.com), November 21, 1999.

Hate to disappoint your delusions, but have you any knowledge of the HELL that is raised by cable customers when their 100-channel universe goes dead on their idiot boxes?

And this is a trivial, totally non-life-threatening worthless technology!

Now watch these same people react when their POWER, CABLE, PHONE, WATER, AND SEWER ALL go out within hours or days of each other!

Can you say "Don't stand in their way?"

Millions will be singing "I want my MTV."

-- profit of doom (doom@helltopay.ca), November 21, 1999.

Yeah Suzy, maybe it was the small town niceness, (then again, from what I heard, it's hard to loot a store thats underwater!(LOL)) but the stories that predominate peoples minds are the LA riots, the Post- Andrew looting, the Blackouts of NYC, and other tragedies that the scum come out to play in. In response to the original post, I'm in the group saying Hasta la Vista if I hear that China, Tiawan and the rest have 'gone the way of the wind', i.e. blown away, of implementing my own evac plan. To qoute that infamous country song, (and to paraphrase it)

"Take this job, an' shove it!! I hain't a workin' here no more. Spent alla mah days, prepin' for Y2K, and the boss jes don' understand..."

-- Billy-Boy (Rakkasan@yahoo.com), November 21, 1999.

Suzy's example was not only from small-town niceness but also the fact that the rest of the country wasn't affected and could send in help. Simulataneous failures would present a different, extended, more negative outcome, no matter how nice the people started out behaving in the beginning. Let's pray for God's mercy.

-- Tishaminga (steverromano@eaton.com), November 21, 1999.

My son was at Frederick, Md. for the driil in Sept. He said 15 guys in his unit will be on duty ( I forgot to ask how big his unit is) but he will be on call, JIC

-- KoFE (your@town.USA), November 21, 1999.

Hmm, re. Ed's point, I'll most likely already be IN work. The only thing that would send me home (pre rollover) would be rioting in New Zealand or Australia.

A better question might be: how long would you stay at work AFTER rollover if things start going wrong? Any of the following would send me home: power, tv, heating or vehicle fuel, or phone failures, or reports of civil unrest in the UK.

Fingers crossed we won't have to find out.

-- Colin MacDonald (roborogerborg@yahoo.com), November 22, 1999.