MPR: Y2K Community Conversation Highlights

St. Paul Y2K Community Conversation Highlights
By Andrew Haeg
July 21, 1999
Part of MPR Online's Y2K Coveragesection.

John Koskinen, Chairman of the President's Council on Y2K Conversion, St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman, and Paul Aasen, deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, each delivered prepared remarks to an audience at the Great American History Theater in St. Paul .

KOSKINEN SAID THAT Y2K has provided a unique opportunity to bring together communities. But, he said, "The Year 2000 problem is clearly a serious one," and one that, if not dealt with, "has the potential to create serious disruptions."

"Even for those organizations that have spent a lot of time, have fixed their systems, have implemented upgraded systems, nobody can guarantee that everything's going to work," he said. "In fact it may be easier to guarantee that things won't work."

"What we can guarantee, is that if nobody does the work, if you're in an organization, in a governmental unit in the private sector, and you've decided to wait and see what happens and you'll fix it later, a lot of people will find that this was a real problem and it created real difficulties," he said.

To prevent those difficulties, Koskinen encouraged everyone, from organizations to communities to individuals, to exchange information. "Ultimately, we're confident that if people have real information, and hard facts about what's going to happen to them and their community, they'll respond appropriately," he said.

If they don't have correct information, Koskinen said, there might be problems. "We're concerned about overreaction by the public on the one hand, where people unnecessarily change their economic patterns and behavior." He said that if enough people act erratically, "we can create short-term shortages or economic difficulties independent of the operation of Year 2000 systems and information systems generally."

"But at the other end of the spectrum, we're also concerned about complacency," he said. "If people decide 'this isn't such a big deal after all, we don't have to do anything,' we're concerned that organizations won't do what they need to do, that people will not be prepared, that communities won't work together to endure whatever happens."

Koskinen outlined the federal government's preparations as a backdrop to the local preparations he said communities should make. "The basic infrastructure of the United States will hold," he said. That will include telecommunications, the power grid, the banking system and the FAA. "I'm delighted to note that the federal government, as of the last report out on May 15, had 93 percent of its mission critical systems completed, and we expect that virtually all of them will be done by the end of this summer," he said. "There will not be any problems" come the millennium, he said, because of the failure of federal systems.

But, he said, "That doesn't mean that there won't be problems at the local level. As you're hearing good news nationally, you should not become complacent about the importance of the problem locally," he said. "Take what you learn here tonight, and take it home to others."

With that, Norm Coleman spoke about challenges locally.

Norm Coleman, mayor of St. Paul

Y2K, Mayor Coleman said, presents a wonderful opportunity for us, the people of St. Paul, to come together and get to know each other beyond Y2K problems.

Beyond that, he said he was confident in the state's infrastructure. He said that the more he had conversations with people across the board, the more he believes that Y2K will be a problem of minor inconveniences, not major disasters. "I think our backyard is in pretty good shape," he said.

But the biggest problem, Coleman said, will be fear. And to dispel the fear, Coleman cited what the state has done, and exhorted communities to prepare and inform their residents, so that fear doesn't paralyze the state come January 1.

First, Coleman said the state has prepared by checking and remediating their own systems and have made sure that employees will get paid in the new millennium.

Second, Coleman said that they have created contingency plans. For instance, Coleman said the city is not buying new generators for fire stations, but is preparing to allow those stations to hook into alternative power sources if problems do occur. "We had to do that any way," he said. "So we're using Y2K to make some of the changes that we need."

The third of the city's preparations, Coleman said, is communications. "Telling people what we know is important."

The fourth part is emergency management, which Coleman said will be directed by the fire department.

The fifth part, and that which Coleman said is cause for great optimism, is community preparedness. Prior to the millennium rollover, Coleman said it's vital that communities connect with their residents and find out how to dispel their fears and to prepare them for the millennium. And, Coleman said, once you've done that, "Ask them how they're doing. We are using Y2K to connect with people way beyond Y2K."

Coleman finished by citing Pascal's wager. "If you do believe in God," Coleman said, and God doesn't exist, "Nothing's hurt." But "if you don't believe in God," or Y2k in this instance, "and there is a problem, you could be in for some big trouble. We're following Pascal's lead," he said. In other words, the state is preparing for problems confident that the preparation itself can only be a good thing. "Be prepared for whatever, and hopefully whatever won't be a heck of a lot," he said.

Paul Aasen, Deputy State Commissioner of Public Safety and member of the governor's "Y2K Superboard"

Paul Aasen agreed with what Coleman and Koskinen said, "You'll think I'm saying the same thing," he said. "I think that's a good thing. That doesn't always happen."

Aasen then presented a list of perspectives, ideas and facts about Y2K with one caveat: "My comments are heavily skewed toward public safety issues," he said.

Separate life-safety issues from continuity of daily life issues.
Every business has an economic incentive to do some work and make the turn.
Not all governmental services are mission critical. Pick the important things.
Emergency management has to look at it from the standpoint of outcomes. What do we do when certain things happen?
The urban centers may be more vulnerable than the outlying areas, since people in rural areas are somewhat accustomed to service interruptions.
Y2K creates an enormous opportunity. "It's a great chance to get us all together," he said.
We are moving from technological fixes to contingency plans.
The state is spending about $50 million on fixing its systems.
There are 1,300 mission-critical systems identified across the state. Ninety-seven percent of those systems have been fixed. About 90 percent have been tested.
The state will aggressively distribute information, especially in December of 1999.
We will have state staff employed in six regions across the state.
There's an early warning system being driven by the United States Department of State. That system will track problems as they occur from the embassy in Fiji (the closest to the dateline), all the way to Minnesota.
"This is going to be a very large party," Aasen said. The millennium celebration is something that Aasen and his colleagues are "looking at as potentially a higher risk than the technological side," he said.
Inconveniences are not a disaster.
Individuals should be prepared.
Aasen said that, no matter how hard they work, "The event will present itself in ways that we cannot anticipate."

Questions and Answers from the audience

Q: Will all countries of the world, as the inspector general of the State Department suggested on July 21, experience unrest and disruptions in the flow of goods and services?
"I think it's probably a slight overstatement. It is clear that there will be some failures in countries around the world, primarily in the developing countries." Fortunately, Koskinen said, the developed countries reported that they are mostly prepared.

"If you are a company or an area of the country that depends on trade with developing countries," Y2K will have an effect on you. He cited the southeastern United States, the gateway to Central and South America, and that they may have problems due to failures in the developing world.
Q: Could the Russians launch their nuclear weapons accidentally?
"Early on that was even a question that I asked," Koskinen said. "The important thing to know is that both here and in Russia, and actually in all the nuclear powers of the world, no nuclear weapon gets launched without human intervention." Weapons "fail in the 'off' position," he said.

"On the other hand," Koskinen said, "we are worried about the early warning system of the Russians, which is heavily computer dependent. They've had major economic challenges over the last three or four years. And if their computer system continues to erode and continues to have Y2K problems and it goes dark," Koskinen said, "they basically are blind and can't see what's happening to them. We're concerned about an increase in the level of their anxiety." To prepare, the United States and Russian governments are setting up an early warning center so the two governments can exchange information, and assuage any doubts or fears the other may have.
Q: Will the federal government require the pharmaceutical companies to create a surplus of finished product before the end of the year to ensure that there will be medicine available to hospitals and pharmacies in case those companies have manufacturing disruptions?
A: "We don't have the authority to require companies to do anything," Koskinen said. But he said the government held a roundtable at the White House earlier this year, which was attended by representatives from every sector of the pharmaceutical industry.

"The important good news is that the pharmaceutical industry is not a just-in-time inventory event," Koskinen said. There are about 90 days of supply of finished product, he said. They looked at national disasters, and in them, no one had any examples of people having to go more than a day without proper medicine, he said. Koskinen said that people should renew their prescriptions within five to seven days of their expirations. In addition, many pharmaceuticals are stocking up on extra inventory, and that over half of the pharmaceutical companies are producing more.

"Make sure you're in touch with your health-care provider, ask them the question and follow their direction," said Mayor Coleman.

Koskinen added that people should not stockpile their prescriptions, "That's the great fear of the entire industry - including the medical profession - is that that's what may create the problem," he said. "A distortion in the supply system may increase the likelihood that local pharmacies may run out. We want to make sure that fear of shortages doesn't create shortages that may be life threatening in some cases."
Q: Social Security took ten years just to do initial repair on the code at their headquarters, haven't done the regionals, they haven't finished system testing. In August last year, a Minnesota state agency did a survey of all 330-odd utilities, water, gas, power, oil, etc., in the state of Minnesota. Between half and three quarters had not fixed one line of code. If Social Security hasn't finished to the point of all their systems testing, which takes a full calendar year, in 10 years, how can a Minnesota person be optimistic about the prospects for next year to be anything than a lot worse than depression?
A: Koskinen said that Social Security did actuarial calculations in 1989, and found that they didn't work. Thus, they started some 10 years early, and didn't work at an aggressive pace. On the other hand, Koskinen said, utilities have been able to do the same in three years because they have applied a great deal of energy to fixing their problems. Koskinen said that now, a number of organizations actually have legitimately done it and have had outside verification.

Al Furber from Connexus Energy said that their distribution system is not date sensitive. "We're not dealing with a lot of code with respect to delivery," Furber said. Thus, he said Connexus has been able to do all their testing and remediation within a year. And now, as he had earlier, Furber said, "We are working on contingency plans."
Q: If you ask anybody who's in charge of an agency, a business, they're going to tell you that everything's fine. How do you know whether to believe them?
A: "A lot of organizations have been reporting progress," Koskinen said. "They have not as of a year ago said 'we're done,' they've said 'I think we're going to make it,'" and proceed to say how many percent done they are, he said. That in-depth, specific reporting makes Koskinen confident that many organizations are being candid.

In addition, Mayor Coleman said, "There are compliance measures. Certainly we in government are employing that, and I know the folks in the private sector have clear ways by which they say they are compliant," he said.
Q: Should I be concerned about my direct deposits, and should I have cash on hand to cover my daily needs?
A: One banker in the audience said, "It's a long weekend, you might want to have a little bit more than normal," he said. "I probably won't have very much in my pocket at all," he said.
Q: What neighborhood preparations should be made?
A: "Have neighborhood-centered responses," Norm Coleman said. "Our challenge is to make sure that as we get out there that there isn't somebody who is disconnected because of language, because of economics, because of age," Coleman said. To do that, Coleman said they are getting in touch with people with deep roots in the community, who can then address those challenges.
Q: What should we expect as far as loss or delay of Internet services?
A: "The Internet is a great concern," Koskinen said. "I view it as a mission critical structure." Early on, Koskinen said he was assured that the Internet was all right. But that only meant the protocols were OK, he said. More recently, he said he's become concerned that the Internet will not work. "The risk is that it will degrade, that it will slow down," Koskinen said.

(Koskinen participated in a July 30th seminar to discuss the preparedness of the Internet for Y2K. The information from that is available to the public at: http://www.y2k.gov/java/index.htm)
Q: If the police and fire computers go down, how are we going to be protected?
A: A representative of the St. Paul police department said that they are satisfied that their mission-critical computers are compliant. In the case of failures, that representative said they can dispatch information over radios.

The police and fire departments' communications are tied, so the same plan follows for fire stations, he said.

The fire department said they have a three-day water supply in place, one official said.
Q: What are critical systems in health care? What health care facilities will be ready and what won't be ready by the millennium?
A: Each individual health care facility needs to answer "what is a mission-critical system," on their own. "Health care is delivered by people," said Melanie Soucheray of Minnesota Hospital and Health Care Partnership , and people are Y2K compliant. "The devices that we use as tools have been evaluated, and the degree to which they are mission critical they have been fixed or replaced," she said.

Soucheray and Koskinen then exhorted people to collect local information and to call those services that people depend on to find out whether they are compliant.
Q: California has been aggressive in pressuring their chemical producers to be Y2K compliant. Should Minnesota follow its lead?
A: "Chemical plants and their safety is a critical issue," Koskinen said. "If a chemical plant does a test and has problems during the test, the EPA has said it will not take any action against that plant." But he said the EPA has determined that if chemical plants don't do the test, they will take full action against them.
Q: Should the government test water right after the rollover to make sure that it's safe to drink?
A: One representative from a water company said that they have several hours lead time to deal with that problem and will have extra staff on site that night to deal with any problems.
Q: What work has been done to deal with the potential economic consequences of the Year 2000?
A: "We think that the developed countries are doing well," Koskinen said. He asked the Council of Economic Advisors to monitor the issue, and to this point, he said, they have not found anything to alarm them. "It does not mean that there won't be economic issues for individual companies or individual localities," he said. "So at this juncture we also think there will continue to be failures through the early part of the year as systems begin to demonstrate that they're not functioning correctly. We don't think that at this juncture there will be any need for a national economic response to Y2K."
Q: Will there be satellite failures like the one that recently knocked out communications across the globe?
A: The good news about satellites is that they're basically antennas circling the world, and so they don't have any Y2K factors built into them. The Y2K risks are in the ground systems," Koskinen said. "I think satellite communications will work."
Q: How do you prepare a community for Y2K and make sure they have all the appropriate resources?
A: "We're not stocking up on supplies," Mayor Coleman said. The real issue in the communities is connecting individuals to the community. He cited St. Paul's web site: www.stpaul.gov/y2k. "The key thing for us in the community is to make sure the district councils and the churches are connected. Call the mayor's office and we will then connect you with folks in the community: 651-266-8510."
Q: What's the biggest problem from your perspective, people panicking, or people not paying attention?
A: Koskinen said he wants something in the middle.

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