(2/24/99)
What are you doing to get ready for the Year 2000 computer bug?
Experts disagree on whether the bug will cause massive disruptions next January.
But they all agree, basic preparation is a good idea for everyone.
News Specialist John Hollenhorst has the last of our team reports on Y2K.
This doesn't mean we all need to buy massive supplies of food and head for the hills. But it might be a good idea to prepare as if you were getting ready for a severe winter storm.
One community in Colorado has become a model for the nation. Worries about the Y2K bug set in early there, and are taken very seriously.
Boulder County, Colorado is noted for intellectual free-spiritedness, perhaps even for a bit of eccentricity.
And people here got out in front early on Y2K.
One retired software executive is organizing a national effort to wake up American business so they'll educate employees about preparedness.
Paloma O'Reilly left her software job three years ago to sound the alarm. Her Cassandra Project has gained national attention through the Internet. "When we started we were just about the only people out there doing this." And now you have a library? "Yeah, this is nuts," she says.
O'Reilly says she has nothing in common with religious fanatics who see Y2K as a fulfillment for end-of-the-world prophecies. "No, we're just trying to come at this very common-sensically and say, 'Look! We don't know what's going to happen. So let's just do preparedness.'"
Boulder County put together a neighborhood preparedness scheme that's been noticed nationwide. At community meetings, Y2K volunteers are recruited to organize their neighbors.
Coordinator Kathy Garcia says, "If things go down, such as power, all of us are going to need to band together in our neighborhoods to take care of one another."
Experts in Colorado and Utah say every family should have basic supplies to get them through a few days of trouble. Food, of course. Water. Medical supplies. A radio. "And of course toilet paper is worth it's weight in gold," O'Reilly adds.
At the community level, Boulder County was one of the first to run a table-top Y2K drill. Among other things, they learned the 911 dispatch computers would crash on January 1.
The community meetings have helped put business and government leaders on the spot.
Larry Stern, Boulder County Emergency Director, says, "What the public is telling them in these kinds of meetings, 'Hey! Don't lie to us. If you're having a problem, let us know what the problem is ahead of time.'"
At one meeting, the power company agreed to bring in a 90-day supply of coal, just in case the trains stop dead in their tracks on January 1 and can't make it to the power plant.
But what if all this worrying, all this fretting over a computer bug turns out to be a joke a year from now? Well, the people here say they can handle that too.
As Kathy Garcia sees it, "People will have a little extra food, a little extra water, and they will have gotten to known their neighbor's really well. And so no matter what disaster may hit us, whether a snowstorm or a flood, we will be prepared."
And if Y2K fear evaporates, there's always another use for, say, 300 pounds of food in the basement, according to Dr. Paul Haber, of Boulder. "I will gladly take it to a homeless shelter and give it all away. And I would be one happy guy."
Utah officials tell us entrepreneurs are exploiting the worry by marketing Y2K kits and even by trying to sell information.
There are cheap ways to create a three-day survival kit. And there's a ton of information out there for free. You can find links to all sorts of Y2K material on this web page.
Y2K Links & Stories
