Based on a staged, choreographed drill designed to do nothing more than test backup communications, Wired News has declared that the "lights will stay on" during the century date change. Hang on folks, the MEDIA SPIN will only increase from here on out...

The Lights Will Stay On

The power utilities of North America participated Friday in a successful drill for keeping the grid live after the year 2000.

In the event that the automated computer systems are incapacitated, voice systems and manual procedures will keep the grid functioning.

The North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) coordinated the drill, with about 200 utilities across North America participating.

The test involved removing external voice and computerized systems that monitor and control the electric power grid. Personnel at electric facilities throughout the continent relayed information about power flows, voltage and frequency to control centers via privately owned telephone networks and satellite voice systems.

NERC said the drill was valuable for training personnel and for practicing backup communications procedures. The organization has identified a few problems with the current plans and will redo the drill on 8-9 September.

-- Nabi Davidson (nabi7@yahoo.com), April 12, 1999

Answers

Maybe they will retract... (It would be nice to see them admit when they make a mistake.)

-- Reporter (reporter_atlarge@hotmail.com), April 12, 1999.

Yup- that's for sure. If not the electric ones, the candles, Aladdins, Petromaxes etc. will be burning bright.

-- (li'ldog@stillontheporch.com), April 12, 1999.

Oh, li'ldog, you sly dog. That's a brilliant (get it?) Bill Clinton- style explanation.

-- rick blaine (y2kazoo@hotmail.com), April 12, 1999.

Here's the note I sent them in response...

Your Y2K coverage is generally solid, but you dropped the ball with today's report, "The Lights Will Stay On". As even NERC conceded, the weekend drill had nothing to do with power generation or distribution; it was a contingency planning exercise to test how managers might respond in the event of telecom failures. A welcome and needed exercise, but hardly an unconditional guarantee that "the lights will stay on," as your headline misleadingly suggested. Being spun is never fun.

scott johnson -- Scott Johnson Editor, y2ktoday http://www.y2ktoday.com/ sjohnson@idefense.com

-- Scott Johnson (scojo@yahoo.com), April 12, 1999.

Backup communications???? Bwahahahahahahahahhhaaaa!

Did you SEE what they USED for "backup communications"??????????

A CELL PHONE!!!!

Bwahahahahahahahahahaaaaaa!

-- INVAR (gundark@sw.net), April 12, 1999.

INVAR's point actually made me laugh, too. (Then sigh.)

Anybody's who has studied any subject in depth (from timber/cotton vs. hemp, to AMA vs. holistic, to you name it) has usually come across the fact that every major publisher / creator of any type of media in this country (newspaper, magazine, television, radio, movie) is run (usually has a board of directors) by the same people.

Back in... oh, 1986 or so, I saw the list of the board of directors for every major health agency (govt), disease foundation (etc.), chemical company (etc.), along with their relationships to each other. It was truly mindboggling.

I never bought the conspiracy stuff prior to that, and I still don't (except as an "additional" condition brought on by human nature being consistent), but after seeing this it was no stretch at all to imagine the country, and the planet, eventually being run by about 12 people at the top of the pyramid. And to understand why I had come across so much obviously propagandized media, when I was under the delusion that America's "free press" surely had told me the truth... finally much of my confusion about facts I found vs. what the media said began to make sense. Sigh, another illusion dispelled.

It looks to me like Wired's staff did what they wanted, and then somebody "from above" provided a little "attitude adjustment." Perhaps if WIRED wants to stay in business, or the people leading it want to stay employed, they will have to get a little more... er... optimistic. Is this the first step?

PJ in TX

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), April 12, 1999.

Interesting. Wired (the magazine) is now owned by Conde Nast (who also publish Vanity Fair), while "Wired Digital" (the on-line version) is still run by the same bunch of crazies who started the magazine. It appears that Conde Nast is considerably less optimistic about Y2K than the folks at "Wired Digital".

And isn't it a bit odd that there's no byline on this article? Is it really a press release?

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), April 12, 1999.

As always, it pays to read additional articles, and not just the haedlines ...

Diane

PG&E Year 2000 Drill On Electricity Goes OK

Chronicle Staff and Wire Reports
Saturday, April 10, 1999

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/04/10/BU94567.DTL

Pacific Gas and Electric and the state's grid operator said the first in a series of Year 2000 preparedness drills yesterday went ahead smoothly.

The drill marked the first of two major tests under the supervision of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), an umbrella organization responsible for ensuring power is always available to anyone hooked up to the grid.

More than 3,000 electric utilities -- all of the system operators in the United States and Canada -- participated in the first of the two mammoth drills that grid operators think will prepare them for any Year 2000 electric system failures.

[snip]

[Does the start of this article imply the drill was testing power -- not communications -- at it will all be okay?]

In California, PG&E and the California Independent System Operator switched over yesterday to backup systems for 2 1/2 hours to handle a simulated crash in data and voice communications systems.

With the exception of some minor mistakes involving wrong telephone numbers and problems with pagers, officials said they were able to collect and transmit data on the flow of electricity over transmission lines.

[Oh, its about data not power. *Sigh*]

See also ...

Power industry says Y2K drill a success; skeptics unsure
Saturday, April 10, 1999

S. MITRA KALITA, Associated Press Writer

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/news/archive/1999/04/10/national0138EDT0438.DTL

[snip]

The problem, critics say, is that Friday's drill didn't tell consumers anything about whether power will keep flowing to their switches in the event of massive computer glitches.

[snip]

Utility customers weren't affected because the drill did not test electricity production. And that's what concerns observers like Guidry.

``Today doesn't have anything to do with the ability to produce energy,'' he said. ``It has to do with their ability to talk to each other.''

[snip]

``Testing a portion of the entire Y2K program is part of the contingency planning,'' he said. ``But this is a drill -- a drill that's not operationally testing anything. There's no way to test absolutely everything.''

[Don't you just love semantics?]

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), April 12, 1999.