From today's Electronic Telegraph:

Survivalists brace themselves for dark side of the Millennium By James Langton in New York

HIDDEN in the depths of forests and remote mountain valleys, thousands of Americans are preparing for what they believe is the imminent collapse of Western civilisation.

Instead of welcoming in the New Year with celebrations and champagne, they will be nervously polishing their shotguns and checking huge stockpiles of dried food and bottled water meticulously assembled to survive in a world without any of the comforts and conveniences of the 20th century.

The next seven days are a countdown to the moment of truth for America's small but determined survivalist movement that has retreated to a cavemen-like existence in anticipation of widespread chaos caused by the so-called Y2K computer bug.

Despite assurances last week from President Clinton that most key computers are "99.9 per cent" ready for the switch from 1999 to 2000, they expect January 1 to herald the complete collapse of banking, transport, power and communications.

Favourite boltholes include caves and log cabins in the Appalachian mountains, farm houses in the less populated parts of the Midwest and trailer parks in Texas, Arizona and New Mexico. A Christian community in a remote part of North Carolina is selling five-acre sites for $25,000 (#15,000), with the promise of free ploughing and a tractor with five year's supply of diesel fuel.

Shops selling everything from camping equipment and clockwork radios to drums of wheat and dried beans have reported record business in recent months. Among those fleeing civilisation is Bruce Beach, a 65-year-old American who has moved with his wife and 99-year-old mother to a huge bunker in Canada, 100 miles north of Toronto, which he has built from 45 school buses buried in the ground and covered with concrete.

Mr Beach, who admits that his neighbours call him "Beach the nut", says he can accommodate 500 people in the bunker and is offering a package that includes a New Year's Eve party for $8,000 (#5,000). So far there have been no takers.

Also getting away from modern life is Gary North, the self-styled "chief compiler" of the Millennium Bug movement, who has prophesied doomsday from his web site and newsletter. He believes that the American constitution should be replaced by biblical law and recently moved from Baltimore to rural Arkansas in anticipation of the death of up to a billion people from disease and famine.

Mr North, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of California, refuses to speak directly to the press because he believes that it has failed to take the problem seriously. However, in a long and rambling statement, he predicts the collapse of the electricity grid on January 1, followed by martial law and food riots in cities. "We're on the Titanic," he says. "It's time to start moving towards the lifeboats. Let the folks in the grand ballroom enjoy their evening.

"They don't want to hear bad news, they're having the time of their lives. Meanwhile, collect your valuables, put on a life jacket, and grab a blanket. It's going to be a long night." Among the more ambitious ventures was a plan for a self-sustaining town of 500 people with its own power supply in Arizona.

The venture failed to sell a single property. Many survivalists are fundamentalist Christians who see echoes of the biblical Apocalypse in the Millennium Bug, which will cause some computers to read the year 2000 as 1900 and crash. Tom Clark, a fundamentalist Christian from Chicago who sells basic supplies, including grain mills for turning wheat into flour, plans to move out of town in anticipation of "one massive problem".

Mr Clark, who is now waiting in a secret wilderness retreat, said: "I don't want to have 10 million people marauding through the city looking for food, and angry because the government has deceived them." Previous predictions of failure, including a run on the banks, have failed to materialise.

Lehman's, a family-run business in Ohio supplying the Amish with household appliances that run without electricity, experienced a huge upsurge in orders earlier this year, but things have been quieter since. Glenda Lehman said: "We had a lot of people slightly embarrassed and wanting to return things. But it doesn't take much to set things off. There was a report recently in [the newspaper] USA Today about problems with Y2K compliance in the water supply companies and suddenly water filters were flying out the door."

Observers say that it is difficult to tell how many Americans are taking the threat seriously. Tim Watson, the editor of Y2K Magazine said of those taking precautions: "They are keeping quiet, either because they don't want others to know they are there or because they are worried people will laugh at them."

Electricity and telephone companies insist that they have tested their computers and say that they will work normally. However, as a precaution, most large American cities plan to have essential staff on duty in special command bunkers on New Year's Eve - just in case the prophets of doom prove to be correct.

-- Old Git (anon@spamproblems.com), December 26, 1999

Answers

It's pretty sad to read something like this and then recall that a free press is somehow connected to liberty.

What was that connection again?

-- Me (me@me.me), December 26, 1999.

Good point Me.

The people who founded this country have more in common with your average survivalist that with today's average "citizen".

-- JIT (justintime@rightnow.net), December 26, 1999.

Makes us sound like we are waiting for a bunch of UFO's or something. Pure crap!

-- Pete Moss (can'thappen@myworld.com), December 26, 1999.

I resent the Christian slant put on this because I, and all other Y2Kers I know in surface life, are not Christians.

It makes us sound like we're waiting for a Biblical end.

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), December 26, 1999.

"...in a long and rambling statement..." Did she (the journalist) read anything of his? He writes quite cogently. But then, I'm only a survivalist nut waiting for doom in... one of the high-end enclaves of the late, great American civilization... (Hey, repent, you all.)

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), December 26, 1999.

This is typical crappy press coverage of a very complex subject. I am not surprised by any of this, as the media in general holds free thinking folks in contempt. By free thinking, I refer to folks like most of us in this forum, who don't buy the Clinton party line and who refuse to place their lives in jeopardy based on unsupported media platitudes.

I am always amazed and disturbed at the attempt of the media to mix religion with Y2K. No doubt there are fundamentalist folks who are involved with prep and Y2K related activity. However, the fact remains that Y2K is a man made technology problem, NOT a supernatural or theological problem. If you wish to raise the importance of your faith as part of your survival plans, I applaud you and support the idea. The problem is that certain folks have tried to imply that Y2K is less a technology issue and more like the second coming of Jesus Christ scheduled and ready to happen on cue. It is precisely that mindset that draws the attention of the media and results in this kind of insulting journalism.

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 26, 1999.

What a pathetic piece of worthless polly spin. The writers of this article should be fired immediately. . . . .

-- (brett@miklos.org), December 26, 1999.

"HIDDEN in the depths of forests and remote mountain valleys, thousands of Americans are preparing...they will be nervously polishing their shotguns and checking huge stockpiles of dried food and bottled water meticulously assembled to survive in a world without any of the comforts and conveniences of the 20th century."

Don'tcha just love it?

The typical U.K. reader, scanning this story and oblivious to the potential length and depth of the dangers associated with the Y2K bug, will smile a superior smile at the vagarities of his half- wide 'colonial cousins' across the Atlantic and effortlessly reach for some more toast and marmalade.

Meanwhile, I seem to recall posts here from numerous apartment- dwellers in New York, California, the mid-west cities, and Chicago.

Did Al Gore and the EPA re-forest those cities while I wasn't looking?

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), December 26, 1999.

Ooops! That should have been "half-wild". But every American reader would have known that, anyway, right...:)

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), December 26, 1999.

"Mr North, who holds a doctorate in history from the University of California, refuses to speak directly to the press because he believes that it has failed to take the problem seriously."

No! Whatever would make Gary North think that?!

-- John Whitley (jwhitley@inforamp.net), December 26, 1999.

True, it would be more accurate to say that North doesn't speak through a medium whose spin he doesn't control.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 26, 1999.

Flint, where were you on that thread about the embeddeds in the oil wells? I know you read it, it seems very uncharachteristic of you that you did not post a rebuttal.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 26, 1999.

Forrest:

I don't know anything about the specifics of oil wells, so I can only read the discussions and note the differences of opinion. I can say that from a general design standpoint, extremely harsh environments tend to make for short lifespans. In general, this leads to two aspects of the design decision -- (1) Try to design the embedded systems so that the more sensitive parts (like code logic and execution) aren't in the harsh environment; and (2) Design the overall system (the well itself) to be able to withstand frequent failures of devices with known short lifespans.

I don't know if this *is* the way such systems were designed, I'm only saying that's the way I would do it, if possible. But this isn't a rebuttal, it's only vaguely informed skepticism of some of the reported fears.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 26, 1999.

Hey Flint!,

Bad Boy, Bad Boy!

What ya gona do, What ya gona do, What ya gona do, when they come for you!

Flint, THEY WILL come for YOU! THEY CERTAINLY WILL!

Deo Vindicie!,

BR

-- brother rat (rldabney@usa.net), December 26, 1999.