Y2K Where We Live

Where are you, and how are y2k things progressing there? Does anyone in your neighborhood (nearby and broad) have the idea yet, or is everyone still sleeping? Has the story been on or in the news? Is anyone making any plans for the community? Just let us all know the general (or specific) situation as you see it out your front door....

-- Bill (billdale@lakesnet.net), December 23, 1998

Answers

Hello.

I'm not certain how things are in my area (Eugene, Oregon, USA), and so I suppose that's the main reason I'm responding here. I want to see a forum that let's me know how YOU'RE doing, wherever you are, because your health is my health, your safety is my safety, and we all live downstream.

Best,

Cynthia

-- cynthia (cabeal@efn.com), December 23, 1998.

I live in Toronto, Canada, and to be perfectly honest, the first I heard of the scope of this problem was over the weekend. This may be a generalization, but it seems as though people are still reacting to Y2K as an interesting party conversation, rather than as a real and pressing concern. If anyone has more information about Toronto or Canada's preparations for the year 2000, it would be much appreciated.

-- May Dalume (may@name.net), December 23, 1998.

I live in Calgary, Alberta and have been interested in the computer date problem for a few years. I keep a file folder of all Y2k related items from our local newspaper and compare these to items which are published in other locations and information that is available on the internet. Calgary, and the Alberta public in general, has been lulled into believing that Y2K is not a significant problem (if they think about it at all) and that someone will come up with a fix. I am professional with connections to the local university and provincial social services, in both of these areas there is a commonly-held belief that the systems will be fixed in time -- after all hasn't money been spent on hiring people to fix the computers? The overall assuption is that there is nothing to worry about, the economic boom in this community can't end. There is however an indication that some people are concerned about the future -- the local Mormon food cannery which sells bulk foods for long-term storage could be easily accessed by calling a day or so ahead, that was six months ago. Last week when I had decided to purchase I was informed that I would have to schedule a time about one month in advance.

The Braiter/Westcott report and recommendations to the Canadian Government is on the Treasury Department's Y2k website. The government is aware that our entire nation may face a situation as bad as what Quebec experienced during the ice-storm. Please check this site out and get the word out to other Candians. Our government is aware and recommends that we are responsible for our own preparations during a national disaster.

http://www.info2000.gc.ca/Welcome/Welcome.asp

Follow the link to the "What's New" section.

-- Shirley (lesprance@home.com), December 23, 1998.

Hard to believe people are still "sleeping", but yesterday I called a landlord/tenant expert who is a respected author living in LA who has written an excellent personal/community preparedness resource for apartment managers' use for all kinds of emergencies, copyright 1995. I figured if anyone were up on Y2K and community preparedness, he would be...he was clueless! He did not know what I was talking about and had seen nothing in the papers. Although I know it's not what you wanted to hear, Bill and Cynthia, but it looks like LA is still "in the dark."

-- Wayne Schumacher (Schumacher@sou.edu), December 23, 1998.

I live in a very small community (virtually isolated in West Texas), and "we're" clueless in Sanderson! My husband spoke with one of our 4 Commissioners, and his response to my husbands concerns was, "Don't worry. It'll all be fixed in time. The government has it well in hand." Even after emphatic protests by a very knowledgeable citizen (we've been Y2k addicts for the last 6 weeks) telling him that is contrary to professional opinions, and the government's own report card, he still maintained his position. Not a, "Gee, better get more info and check into this." Don't worry, be happy! Gosh, I hate being patronizeed! But, if his attitude is any indication, we're toast. We're so far down on the "food chain" we won't see grocery restocking for months, if not years! Oh, well, I guess we are all where we are by choices we make. I hope I can make better choices in the near future.

-- Sandra M. Jory (rustart@webtv.net), December 23, 1998.

The recent Gary North 4 hour Art Bell appearance, the 60 Minutes piece, the Vanity Fair article, and the current Backwoods Magazine devoted to y2k has awakened two more people.

We now have easily enough to submit a minimum order to Mountain People's Warehouse for those grains not available through the Feed Store.

The rest of our ridge population is still asleep, so far as I can tell. (NorCal Sierra) The local county and towns - probably toast, standard - started too late, too small of budget, lack of vision, and ingrained socialist tendencies (big govt, big business, and big religion will take care of us).

-- Mitchell Barnes (spanda@inreach.com), December 26, 1998.

I woke up when we received the Y2K Citizens's Action Guide supplements as subscribers to the Utne Reader. (A copy resides at www.utne.com/y2k) I've spent the last four days surfing and reading trying to collect my thoughts and figure out what our next steps should be. Other than starting to stock up on staples (and the shelves in the basement to store them on) we've only begun to react.

We live in a small bedroom community half way between Wilmington, DE and Philadelphia, PA. It's a relatively new community (4 years old) and has only recently grown large enough to have the developer turn the Board of our Homeowners Association over to the homeowners( total homes: 109). The first meeting will be held early next month. Given the nature of the recent holiday, I was going to go and suggest forming a Committee to award prizes for the most artisticly decorated house at Christmas time.(Young and foolish!!). Given the events since I got my Utne Reader I've decided to take some of the material I've been collecting to start raising consciousiness instead of prize money. I'll keep you posted.

-- Marilyn Gegier (mbgeiger@aol.com), December 27, 1998.

Here I am in San Francisco, the most "progressive" city in the US. Nothing much is happening here. People going around in circles, keystone Kops, talking, fools rule like everywhere else. There is a looseness, loose in the land, flaccid minds, reality is irrelevant here. I've gotten much better response to the strategy/plan to mobilize and focus on creating a list of cheap and simple ways to implement self-sustainable practices for neighborhoods and individuals on the net then here. I can just imagine that in 3-6 months everyone will know about the serious implications inherent in y2k and panic will begin to brew. I don't see any real substantive contingencies being implemented. No one has a strategy only words, "meet your neighbor, talk about it, audit your gov't utilities". There is nothing terribly wrong with this, but there is nothing concrete happening, or very little. The degree to which I care about everything is only equal to my distaste for the squeel and thrall of fools that surround me on all four sides. I'm drowning in fools. Not to sound condescending, I can be foolish too and perhaps I am devoting all this precious time and energy to this project. So far this has been a one man effort to get this mobilization to a critcal mass where great ideas are coming in from all over the globe. 50 - 100 people could be doing the exact same thing that I'm doing - contacting the zillion sustainable groups, organizations, and communities on the web to generate ideas or culling alternative energy sites or notifying the technologically apt, because it is them, I believe who know, its really not in texts, except rarely.

-- Tom Osher (bagelhole1@aol.com), December 27, 1998.

Hi Everyone,

I am writing from Encinitas, CA. We are on the coast just about a 30 minute drive north from San Diego. It is a midsized suburb surrounded by other similar suburbs of fairly wealthy, highly literate, people who are often working as technical professionals. I spent 10 years in the computer industry myself. It does not seem to guarantee y2k understanding. In fact, it seems to come with the same blindness to long term problems and arrogance that caused the problem to begin with.

There is no y2k organization in my neighborhood or city that I am aware of. When I talk to my neighbors and friends and family they do not believe me in spite of the fact that I have spent weeks researching and provide written articles and offer to educate. People do not want to know. They seem to sense what the information implies about their comfortable lives. The practically run away or react with anger. I have concluded that it is not lack of intelligence that is the y2k problem. It is denial. A fierce form of it that surfaces to protect people from the knowledge that the old ways are over forever.

I often feel very emotionally impacted by knowing about and dealing with y2k. For this reason, I imagine that areas that are more rural, have water, have community, are not threatened by city populations may be able to deal with it better. Here in the desert there simply is no way to save up water for millions of people. I think we are toast to put it mildly.

Lora

-- Lora Ereshan (artemis45@hotmail.com), January 17, 1999.