Excerpted
from: ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT-ERRI Risk Assessment
Services-Tuesday, December 14, 1999-Vol. 5, No. 348-09:30CSTExcerpted
from: ERRI DAILY INTELLIGENCE REPORT-ERRI Risk Assessment
Services-Tuesday, December 14, 1999-Vol. 5, No. 348-09:30CST
Y2K: Hype or Reality??
By Paul Anderson, ERRI Analyst
The controversy concerning the possibility of some sort of Y2K disaster continues, or even intensifies, as 1999 draws to a close. With only 17 days to go, before the reality of Y2K becomes evident, questions continue in many quarters as to whether or not there really is anything to be worried about. Is Y2K "a potential disaster" that has been vastly under-estimated by media pundits, corporate leaders, and government officials, or will it be largely a "non-event"?
Clark Staten, Executive Director of the Chicago-based Emergency Response & Research Institute, and one of the people who has been closely monitoring Y2K preparedness and remediation efforts for two years, says that the truth "probably lies somewhere in the middle of those two extremes."
Staten says, "I think that the United States has made tremendous strides in regard to fixing its Y2K problems." "Our current assessment, with about three weeks to go until the year 2000, would suggest that many sectors of the U.S. infrastructure are adequately prepared for potential Y2K issues," Staten continued.
"I think that the same thing can be said for many of the other industrialized nations of the world ... they probably won't suffer major failures due to the transitional effects of Year 2000 computer programming," he added. "That said," Staten continued, "We are still concerned about several of the reportedly less prepared countries and about 'people problems' associated with the coming New Years Eve."
Staten said that some of the "people problems" could include peripheral issues like Y2K activated computer viruses, cracker/denial of service attacks on government and corporate agencies, and opportunistic criminal and terrorism attacks. Additionally, he said that there is a psychogenic effect associated with "fear of the unknown," that could be generated by potential Y2K failures.
"It would be our greatest hope that this New Year's Eve would be the calmest, most peaceful, and uneventful of any of the past 1000 years," the veteran emergency manager said. "But, it has always been our position and practice that it is prudent to plan for the worst and hope for the best," Staten said. "We see no reason that this rationale shouldn't apply with regard to the upcoming Y2K situation," he continued.
"One of the greatest problems, as we see it, will be to differentiate between real and imagined Y2K problems and to help avoid the potential for public panic that could result due to erroneous reporting of infrastructure failures," Staten added. "Real-time analysis of reported problems during the New Years transition period will be one of the most important issues that government and emergency service agencies will face," he continued.
"It is then important to communicate these findings to the public in a clear, concise, and timely manner, so as to minimize potential public unease about the cause of electricity, water, telephone, banking or other failures that might affect their lives," Staten added.
Staten said that numerous private and government agencies, from the United States and other countries, will be providing information about suspected Y2K incidents via the internet, on toll-free telephone lines, and through the press in news releases. He urged the public to verify any unusual Y2K occurrences through reputable sources and to avoid the impulse to jump to conclusions about the cause of any outage that may occur at year's end.
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