Trying to swat the ‘Year 2000 Bug’

Sunday, Jan. 10, 1999 | 9:19 a.m.

Marlene Lockard conceded she'll be spending plenty of sleepless nights this year pondering her quest to eliminate the dreaded "Year 2000 Bug" that threatens the world's computer data.

As Nevada's director of information technology, Lockard is responsible for ensuring that the state's computers help issue welfare checks on time, operate elevators safely and shut prison doors properly. The state allocated $6 million in hopes of exterminating the bug by July 1 when the fiscal 2000 budget begins.

"It's been very expensive to make this a nonevent," Lockard said. "We've been working very hard. We're hoping this will be much ado about nothing. But anyone who says they're comfortable really doesn't know this issue."

She and other private- and public-sector officials in Nevada are confident that government agencies, banks, utilities and airports will go largely unscathed by the so-called Y2K Bug. But most agree that come Jan. 1, 2000, there could still be inconveniences, such as paperwork with wrong dates. They also fear that many computer users, such as small vendors, will not be compliant by year's end, causing delays in the transfer of data that will add to the inconveniences.

All the fuss is over the fact that many older computer programs have the potential to fail because they may not recognize the year 2000. These include programs that recognize only the last two digits of a year, meaning they could confuse the year 2000 with the year 1900.

Peddlers of doom and gloom believe such failures will cause automatic teller machines to shut down, utility grids to malfunction and airplanes to fall from the sky. But many Nevadans think disaster will be averted.

Paul Stowell, Las Vegas spokesman for Bank of America, said the banking giant has 1,000 computer programmers nationwide working on eliminating the bug. The cost to the company is an estimated $500 million.

"We have been working on this night and day," Stowell said. "It's not a significant problem to solve, but it's labor intensive. We will be Y2K-compliant by the middle of this year. This doesn't mean there won't be glitches.

"As for the people who say they won't be able to get ahold of their money, that's absurd."

Stowell said there could be a "domino effect" of problems if the bank attempts to share information with outside computer systems that haven't been debugged. That's why the bank plans to use only vendors who are also Y2K-compliant.

"It's the smaller companies that will have concerns," he said. "If there is a problem with our computers, we will have hard-copy backup."

Major utilities such as Nevada Power, Southwest Gas, Nevada Bell, Sprint and MGC Communications also plan to be compliant by midyear. But at a session last fall hosted by the Nevada Public Utilities Commission, utility representatives cautioned that problems still could occur if their suppliers weren't compliant. One example cited was the potential for computer bugs to disrupt pipelines from delivering natural gas.

But Bob Weaver, director of application services for Southwest Gas Corp., expressed confidence that his company will be able to debug its system without impacting consumers.

"We don't see any reason at this point why we would have any interruption in our service," he said. "We should have business as usual."

That's not to say Southwest Gas doesn't have bugs to eliminate. The company estimates it will spend up to $2 million on the Y2K problem, but Weaver said most of the upgrades have nothing to do with gas delivery to consumers.

Instead, he said, they involve such equipment as recording devices that help the company monitor the flow of natural gas through the pipelines.

"It's not as if our gas flow will shut down," Weaver said.

Airport 'in good shape'

McCarran International Airport began its Y2K program in January 1997 and also expects to greet the year 2000 with open arms, spokeswoman Debbie Millett said. The new D concourse opened last June as fully Y2K-compliant, and the older concourses are also being upgraded.

Millett said the airport expects no problems with such computer-intensive operations as baggage control, airfield lighting and flight arrival and departure monitors.

"We're actually in good shape," she said.

There are concerns whether the same can be said for the Federal Aviation Administration, which oversees airline travel. The General Accounting Office warned last year that the FAA would not be able to remove all its Y2K bugs before 2000, and it blasted the air agency's management for lack of preparation.

The GAO warned that the bugs could jeopardize airline safety, delay flights and increase costs. But Mitch Barker, an FAA spokesman in Renton, Wash., downplayed the criticism and said the agency should be fully compliant by June 30.

"There will be no impact on air safety," Barker said. "It was never an air-safety issue. It was always a matter of the system maintaining full capacity.

"Will planes fall out of the sky? No. If there are problems on Jan. 1, we will slow the system down. We will not allow flights to get off the ground."

Under a worst-case scenario, Barker said he believes airports may be forced to reduce the number of takeoffs and landings. But to prove confidence with the air-safety system, FAA administrator Jane Garvey plans to fly from Washington, D.C., on Dec. 31, landing Jan. 1 in Los Angeles.

Despite the FAA's confidence, Barker said he gets at least one phone call a day from a reporter about the Y2K issue.

"This is the longest we've had one issue come up again and again and again," he said.

The Department of Defense and State Department have also been criticized for their Y2K performance. But other agencies, such as the Social Security Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs and Small Business Administration, have been praised.

The U.S. Senate considers the computer bug such a hot topic that it formed the Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, chaired by Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah. President Clinton last year signed a bill initiated by the committee that encourages companies to share Y2K information about products and services while protecting consumers from misleading statements.

"We must recognize that this problem is coming and that it must be dealt with coldly, intelligently and efficiently," Bennett said last year. "Don't panic, but don't spend a lot of time sleeping, either."

A chilling example

To prove his point, Bennett told the Colorado River Water Users Association in Las Vegas last month about a small Utah town that tested its water-treatment system by setting the computer equipment on the year 2000. The computer immediately dumped all the treatment chemicals into the water.

"The town would have been poisoned," Bennett said.

Many older computer programs are being rewritten so that the digits 00 through 59 read as years 2000 through 2059, while 60 through 99 represent 1960 through 1999. A gnawing problem, however, involves so-called "embedded chips" that regulate a computer's calendar but are hard to repair because they can be difficult for a programmer to access.

Weaver offered the example of a digital automobile clock that allows the driver to set the time but also contains a calendar that cannot be manually reset. In the case of Southwest Gas, the company has had to replace components containing troublesome embedded chips with Y2K-compliant equipment.

Y2K observers warn, however, that problems could develop before next Jan. 1. They warn that on April 4 computers could interpret the 99th day of the year as an order to shut down all processes. The same argument is being made for Sept. 9, when the calendar will read 9-9-99.

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce has taken steps to keep its 5,600 members abreast of the computer bug by conducting Y2K seminars and putting local businesses with potential problems in touch with experts who can help them. The chamber itself has had to upgrade 48 of its 54 computer stations, according to Kara Kelley, senior vice president.

Kelley said smaller businesses may be disadvantaged in fighting the bug because they don't have the technically trained programmers and budgets that larger companies have. She noted that small companies that aren't Y2K-compliant potentially could lose business to competitors who are up to date.

"Certainly it's an expensive endeavor," she said. "There are a lot of small businesses whose involvement in computer technology is pretty basic. The small-business person may have an underappreciation of what the problem may be."

It's uncertain how the bug could affect the gaming industry. But Dan Lee, chief financial officer of Mirage Resorts, isn't concerned. The Wall Street Journal quoted Lee last year as saying that "this year 2000 stuff is waayyyy overdone" and "complete lunacy."

Gregory Gale, audit division chief of Nevada's Gaming Control Board, is in the process of preparing a letter that will be sent to all casinos later this month seeking updates on their efforts to combat the computer bug.

"Most casinos are doing a pretty good job attending to the problem," Gale said. "It's a concern to us if the casinos aren't compliant. What we're concerned about are things like the progressive slot signs and coin signs."

Clark County, local municipalities and hospitals and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority are also among the entities that have had to study the computer bug. There is no sign of panic in any of those quarters, however.

Question of interfacing

The state's Lockard said one of her most crucial tasks is to ensure that the state's computers are able to interface with local and federal government agencies as well as vendors in time for fiscal 2000. The top priority, she said, is to protect public safety.

"If we don't have independent verification that someone we do business with or trade information with isn't compliant, we'll have to cut the contact off," Lockard said.

Those eager to keep track of local government and business efforts to combat the bug can get information by visiting the Internet website address http://www.y2k-lasvegas.com.

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