I tuned in to our local NBC news station last night here in Central Oregon to watch the 11:00 evening news as I always do. Last night the anchor comes on and the first thing out of his mouth is:

"We are having Y2K problems before the year 2000, so we'll only be on a few minutes tonight."

They showed one local news story, brief weather report and rolled the sports scores, and that was all they could do. It lasted about 6 minutes (normally a half-hour) and that was it - they switched over to Seinfeld!

Don't know exactly the nature of the problem but it is clear that it is going to start becoming very visible to most of the public very soon, and they probably won't be able to keep hiding it much longer.

I just hope I can finish getting everything I need before the shelves start to get emptied!

-- Bender (now@risk.here), February 17, 1999

Answers

Their website hasn't been changed since yesterday so I think they are still having problems:

http://ktvz.com/

I'm going to log off now and see what happens with the news broadcasts tonight. Check back tomorrow and I'll let you know.

-- Bender (now@risk.here), February 17, 1999.

Sorry, Bender, but this doesn't make any sense at all. If you can do six minutes, you can do 30 minutes. I'm getting really suspicious of some of these first-time posters. Lurkers should know that anything that strains the credulity isn't going to fly in this forum. Maybe I'm off-base here, bit I don't think so.

-- Vic (Roadrunner@compliant.com), February 17, 1999.

Vic,

I too think that dog won't hunt . But, this one should be pretty easy to verify. Let's see what bubbles to the top.

-- Greybear, waiting with baited breath (must be those sardines)

- Got Mouth Wash?

-- Greybear (greybear@home.com), February 17, 1999.

Well now, on ABC News, 6/p, Peter Jennings, good scary Y2K report re Russia. INDEFINITE POWER OUT prediction by Russian interviewee. ACCIDENTAL MISSILE LAUNCHES. NUCLEAR POWER PLANT MELTDOWNS. Severe humanitarian consequences. Guess what? Not sugar-coated, no pooh-poohs, not a single snicker. My oh my, the tone is changing. Got TP?

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 17, 1999.

Leska,

I saw that on the ABC Evening News too. It was to the point. Did you notice that Peter Jennings didn't even bother explaining what Y2K is this time? None of the "computers might think it's 1900" that you usually hear in the news...

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 17, 1999.

Greepers, Kevin, yes, was astonished at the serious factual tone, and the grim fatalism. Glad you saw it! Ashton & I just looking at each other, blinking, helps to know we aren't starting to hallucinate Y2K everywhere we look ;-) Thanks, Kevin -- did it startle you?

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 17, 1999.

Alright guys, we've got to remember to breath slowly, especially as things move faster around us.

I for one, should start watching tv and read papers again. Haven't done that in ages, and what's been said here today startled me awake.

Yesterday's main paper in my area had a wooping (for here) article on Y2K. Things are moving faster than my preparations, and that I don't like. I've been taking my sweet time it seems.

-Got brown paper bags?(tm)

-- Chris (catsy@pond.com), February 17, 1999.

Deadline time, perhaps, for essential hardware -- grain mill, serious water filter, pressure cooker, solar oven (refional), non-electric stove, water storage containers, winter clothes (regional), AM/FM/SW radio (best w/SSB), pair of CB transceivers, lamps and/or lanterns, -- there must be something I'm forgetting. A large Doberman, maybe.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), February 17, 1999.

We've been preparing like its 1999 since the middle of 1998. Serious, hard work. Very little leisure time. No extracirricular activities - haven't even been to see a movie since last July.

Gave up a lot of the things we enjoy in order to get the things we might need (food, water, education, skills, etc). And no, we won't be disappointed if we don't need them.

The sad truth is, if we do need them, life is not going to be barrel of laughs and more than a few people are going to die. We do not hope for such a catastrophe.

Our 48-hour 'lights out' test two weeks ago revealed that the generator we purchased in November (Coleman Powermate 5000W) was a real pain in tush. We purchased it new and it seemed to work fine during the 2-hour beak-in run but was hard to start the first cold weekend in January and during our test, the thing would not run at a constant speed. The governer kept gunning the engine. Lights pulsed like a disco. Definitely not good for the well pump.

We bought the generator just for running the well and emergency electrical needs - we basically plan to live without electricity if we have to. We simply cannot afford to store large amounts of fuel or waste it running vacuum cleaners and such.

Anyway, to make a long story short, we decided after the test that we had to have a dependable generator that will start and run well in the cold. On the advice of several people, we decided on the Honda 6500. We don't have a local Honda generator reseller so we went with mail order. We were told that it would be at least 90 days before we are able to take delivery. This will be sometime in May. We found another dealer who said he could get it to us mid-April but the cost was $275 more after shipping. We decided to go with the first dealership who I've done business with in the past and believe will come through - but we're more than a bit nervous about the May delivery date. We're holding onto the Coleman just in case something happens and we are not able to get the Honda.

We feel that we were almost too late in discovering our problem. By May, we think the choices for generators will be quite a bit more limited. We wish we had listened to the advice last November and bought the Honda then.

Our next couple of 48-hour 'lights out' weekends will have to be conducted without the Honda - we simply can't wait until spring to conduct our next tests. We're hoping for some severe cold and snow in the next few weeks - but so far the winter here has been extremely mild - except for January. For a long, detailed report and discussion of our first test - see

So yes, it's been our recent experience that there are indeed shortages of generators, especially the good ones. If you are planning to get one, do it soon. On the other hand, if you're planning on doing without a generator or have evaluated your situation and believe a generator to be unnecessary, then obviously this shortage will not have any real impact on you. Either way, it's time to fish or cut bait. No decision is a decision at this point.

Oh, one word on fuel storage safety. Gasoline is highly flammable and the fumes are dangerous. DO NOT STORE IT IN OR NEAR YOUR HOUSE AND ONLY STORE IT IN SAFE CONTAINERS. Even then, you may have problems. Two nights ago, I opened the door to our flammables shed and got hit in the face by a very strong gasoline vapor -- strong enough to be explosive. I did not turn on the light - I opened both doors and let it air out for about 15 minutes . Then I went in with a flashlight and located the source. One of our new 5 gallon plastic containers had a crack in the seam and had leaked a couple of gallons of gasoline onto the floor of the shed. I left the doors open for two days so that it could air out. Tonight the floor was dry and most of the strong odors were gone. We got lucky. Had this happened in a house or attached garaged, the results could have been disasterous.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), February 17, 1999.

Ooops, goofed up the link to the test report. Let's try again:

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000 TUc

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), February 17, 1999.

It has been a while since i saw the inside of a production room, but ifyou don't have some of the things you need for a full 30 minutes, you can run on a "bulletin" basis for a bit, and you may have to drop after the first 6 or 8 minutes.

cr

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 18, 1999.

Leska,

No, it didn't startle me. We've all read the bad news about Russia and Y2K on the Net recently. I *was* a little surprised that the ABC Evening News mentioned "humanitarian" problems that could happen...but then I realized this was OK by media standards as long as it referred to another country and not the United States.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), February 18, 1999.

Good reactions there to the gas spill - even if the "flash" of a fire from a spill that large were not deadly, the subsequent explosion as the remainder caught fire would have destroyed a good-sied area.

And we wonder if "fire" in more congested areas is likely. Mix candles in one apartment with kids in another with open stoves and propane heaters and wood stoves and Coleman lanterns......

Take care.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), February 18, 1999.

Kevin, you're absolutely right, noticed they were willing to address Y2K realistically because they were talking about that old arch-enemy Russia. But still, maybe a few thought-bulbs went off?

Robert, danger of apt & home fires is a *huge* problem, making us very nervous. 911 won't be able to respond. Burnt toast. :(
Well, today gotta do a buncha stuff, won't have time to learn in cyberspace until later. At least spring is almost here :)

xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxx

-- Leska (allaha@earthlink.net), February 18, 1999.

Bender,

Looks as though we're neighbors. Got ICQ?

-- Madraser (been@risk.here), February 18, 1999.

So, it's now tomorrow (but only temporarily, of course). Wha' hoppen?

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.com), February 18, 1999.

I don't think the majority of the US population will ever Get It, regardless what the media airs about other countries. "It can't happen here." is the mindset of most Americans and until the media shows it *happening* here in the USA, those people will not accept the concept.

If Peter Jennings showed the Russians chaining their missile silo doors shut to prevent accidental launches, most people would say: "What do you expect, they're Russian missiles? They lost the Cold War because their stuff's no good." "Can't happen here." is going to be a popular epitath about a year from now.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), February 18, 1999.

Vic,

You are wrong, I am not making it up. Now they did get whatever it was fixed by Wednesday, but they were cut short Tuesday, I swear to God.

What really suprised me was that the guy came right out and admitted it was Y2K!

It may have been something minor, or my guess is that they had to revert back to their previous system so that they wouldn't miss another broadcast.

If you still don't beleive me, call or e-mail the station yourself:

http://ktvz.com/email.htm

541-383-2121

Madraser,

Still out there? Did you happen to see this too? Maybe you can help convince these skeptics.

-- Bender (now@risk.here), February 18, 1999.

I talked to a Jim **********, at KTVZ this AM. The problem was supposedly a script buffer fault in their AP download program. He insisted that the anchor was wrong and this was in no way a "YK2" problem. He actually used the term "YK2" each and every time. How's that for clueless.

-- Madraser (been@risk.here), February 19, 1999.

Mr. & Mrs. Rimmer,

I feel like I know you both and I'm worried about what *could* have happened. As Andy Rooney once said, it makes no sense to tell people to be careful--of course they're going to be careful...however, *Please be careful* I want to read your posts for many months to come

;-)

-- Sub-Mit (lurking@ofcourse.com), February 19, 1999.

Thanks Madraser!

At least I know that I am not lying about what the anchor said. They probably haven't even started fixing Y2K yet!

-- Bender (now@risk.here), February 20, 1999.