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Saturday, January 1, 2000



Y2K BUG, PREPAREDNESS

Tapa


By Ken Ige, Star-Bulletin
In their Diamond Head facility, National Guard members are
relaxed but ready in case of emergency. At foreground is Allan
Sniffen, with fellow soldiers John Pico, Addyson
Lai, Jon Nebre and Joseph Luna.



Y2K bug
a no-show: ‘We
feel like the Maytag
repairman tonight’

'It's been duller than dull,'
said the Civil Defense officer

By Christine Donnelly
Star-Bulletin

Tapa

COMPUTER trouble-shooters were left feeling like lonely Maytag repairmen as Hawaii entered the Year 2000 with nary a "millennium bug" computer glitch. But none were complaining.

"It's been duller than dull over here and that's just great," Barbara Hendrie, public information officer for state Civil Defense, said early today from the emergency management agency's command center at Diamond Head.

"We've had reports from virtually every industry and everything's been normal," she said.

Hendrie said there might be minor trouble on Monday as small businesses that did nothing to prepare for the computer problem open for business for the first time in the Year 2000. Plus, it could take weeks or even months to ensure that computer applications that seem OK now actually are. "Nobody is totally out of this whole cycle yet, as much as we may wish that this was over and done with," she said.

Still, as it had earlier in the rest of the world, the most critical night passed smoothly for Hawaii's police and fire departments, U.S. military outposts, telecommunication companies, electrical utilities, airports, hospitals, water supply systems, oil refineries, financial institutions and other major industries, authorities said.

A cheer went up at midnight at the state government's main computer branch as about 20 assembled employees determined all was well with the main operating system. "We're all really happy down here," said Mary Pat Waterhouse, deputy comptroller for the state Department of Accounting and General Services. "We do have one bottle (of champagne) that we're splitting amongst all of us."

Employees from every state department were to come to work starting at 5 a.m. today to confirm that all computer applications -- everything from tax assessments to welfare benefits -- were operating normally, she said.

Waterhouse and others said the lack of trouble did not mean the millennium bug was all hype, but that it had been recognized and fixed in time. Governments and businesses worldwide spent billions of dollars on the problem, which stemmed from some older computers' inability to decipher 2000 as a valid date.

"We feel like the Maytag repairman tonight, but that's ... what we wanted. It was the work that was done beforehand that was so important," said Toby Clairmont, chairman of the emergency preparedness committee for the Healthcare Association of Hawaii, which includes every hospital and most long-term care facilities in the state.

Clairmont said no hospital or care home reported any Y2K computer trouble, although they will remain on alert at least through Feb. 29, as the leap-year date could be problematic. Biomedical equipment such as cardiac monitors, IV pumps and other lifesaving equipment will be rechecked over the next few days, as not all the devices were used today.

"We have to really root things out that don't overtly fail but may give erroneous data," he said. "Our monitoring system and vigilance will continue."

GTE Hawaiian Tel spokesman Keith Kamisugi said that not only was the telephone company free of computer trouble but also "traffic on the network was actually quite normal" after midnight despite an expected spike in use.

"We're thankful that customers kept the network free for emergency calls," he said.

There were two electrical outages on Oahu, but neither was caused by the Y2K bug, said Chuck Freedman, vice president for corporate relations for Hawaiian Electric Co. About 10 customers at Campbell Industrial Park lost power for 90 minutes and about 1,060 customers in the School Street area were without power for about an hour because of a downed line.

As for computer trouble, Oahu's Heco and its subsidiaries on Maui and the Big Island had none.

"We're going to continue to monitor the electrical systems for at least another 24 hours just to make sure, but we've certainly made the key benchmark," Freedman said.



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