Utilities try to sooth public concerns over Y2K problems

Jace Radke

Thursday, March 25, 1999 | 11:15 a.m.

Buying an industrial-sized generator and putting it in the living room is not the way to prepare for the new year, if you ask Nevada Power spokesman Randy Ranck.

That's just one of the crazy stories that Ranck has heard as residents prepare for the possibility that on Jan. 1, 2000, computers controlling such vital services as power, water and banking shut down because they cannot recognize years beyond 1999. It's popularly known as the Y2K bug.

"We heard that a woman had the generator set up in her living room and was storing gas by the gallon in her garage," Ranck said. "A situation like that becomes more of a safety issue than Y2K is."

Ranck and officials from the other valley utility providers met with the public at Clark County Government Building for the third in a series of forums on the Y2K bug.

Along with Nevada Power, representatives from Southwest Gas, the Las Vegas Valley Water Authority, Sprint, the Henderson Water District and the Department of Sanitation met in the County Commission Chambers on Wednesday night to dispel some of the myths around Y2K and utilities.

"There are a lot of crazy ideas out there," Bob Weaver of Southwest Gas said. "We've fielded questions about a supposed government reallocation of energy from smaller to bigger cities for Y2K, and that simply isn't true."

Weaver, Ranck and the rest of the board said that many redundancies and contingency plans are in place to make sure that Southern Nevadans will continue to receive power, water, gas and phone and waste services.

"There has been a lot of press on Y2K and it has played on people's fears," said Ranck, who says that Nevada Power is 80 percent Y2K compliant and will meet a June goal to be totally compliant. "You hear about people buying land and generators and building massive food storage, and those things just aren't necessary."

The potential Y2K problem stems from the way computers are programmed. In an effort to save memory in older computers, programmers set computers to use a year's final two digits when recording dates. For example, 99 means 1999. The concern is that when computers read 00, they will interpret the number to mean 1900, causing computers to shut down or spit out the wrong information.

Each of the agencies at Wednesday's forum said that a large investment of money and time has been made to safeguard against Y2K.

Nevada Power is spending between $4 million and $7 million to combat the bug, while Southwest Gas is estimating spending $1 million. The water districts and sanitation department are spending a combined $650,000, and Sprint is spending $300 million nationwide.

All of the representatives of the local utilities said that they had not heard anything about the cost of Y2K being passed on to residents, but a spokeswoman for Sprint said it was likely that the company's cost would be passed on.

On April 28 the county will hold its next Y2K forum featuring experts on public safety.