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ED INK: The Worried Wait For Y2K

This week, the US Senate released the results of its investigation of possible

problems and disruptions associated with the Year 2000 computer bug, which in

headline writers' shorthand has become known as Y2K. The Senate report

concludes that we can expect some disruptions, but not doomsday, as some are

predicting. "What you ought to do is prepare for a good storm, a hurricane, a

storm where you'd like two or three days of...water and canned goods and the

like," said Connecticut Senator Christopher Dodd.

We looked around Newtown this past week and found that several families are

already preparing for January 1, 2000. The people we talked to were, for the

most part, not alarmist, but simply prudent. We found they were all hoping for

the best, but preparing for the worst by laying in extra supplies and in some

cases buying generators. Most people, however, aren't doing anything and

aren't expecting much trouble from the Millenium, except maybe a hangover on

January 1. The informal poll that ran on The Bee's website this past week

asked visitors to the site whether they thought there would be major

disruptions as a result of Y2K. Few people even bothered to vote, and of the

20 who had done so my the middle of the week, 16 (80 percent) said they

expected no major disruptions to their lives.

Because we are so dependent on computers here at The Bee, we started looking

into our own Y2K compliance several months ago and found that many of our

systems would not pass muster on January 1, 2000. Consequently, we are

scheduled for a major technological upgrade in the coming months, and we

suspect that our vulnerability is not uncommon. Public utilities have been

working on the problems for quite some time, and while they are all confident

that the remaining unidentified glitches will be small, none are issuing

blanket guarantees that there will be no service interruptions. The biggest

problems, we suspect, will befall the smaller companies which have not had the

resources or, perhaps, the courage to address their vulnerabilities.

Embedded computer chips that count only two-digit years can be found in

everything from our coffee pots to our cars. Notwithstanding the incredible

economic, social and military strength of our society, it is sobering to learn

that so much of it is supported by such a fragile web of binary code. The real

strength of our society, however, is not its machines but rather its people

acting in community.

We should look on the Y2K threat as an opportunity to get to know our

neighborhoods and our neighbors better, anticipating each others' needs and

helping out where we can. If all our Y2K preparations are done not in the

spirit of hoarding and self-preservation, but in the spirit of community and

sharing, then we will all start the Year 2000 on the right foot, no matter

what happens.