Bob Rutz and his wife are leaving Southern California. They're afraid that the Y2K computer crash on January 1 2000 will cause power outages and anarchy. The Rutzes are building a Christian community called Prayer Lake in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas, and hope to take 100 families with them.
'I look at it as Judgment Day,' said Rutz, 66, an engineer. 'Instead of putting up the barricades and piling up the bodies, we've got to minister to those hurting people down the road.'
To err is human, but to really mess up you need a computer, the saying goes. As the year 2000 approaches, that's what worries many people.
Y2K, also known as the millennium bug, is the name for the now-famous programming glitch which will occur because many old computers will only recognise 2-digit dates. On January 1 2000, computers that have not been fixed, or made 'Y2K compliant,' will begin running amok, automatically shutting down or producing bad data, causing malfunctions in the systems they control.
What will happen?
What happens next is uncertain. The most extreme scenarios picture computer failures that short-circuit the nation's electric power grid, cause havoc in transportation systems, banking and finance, healthcare, government, and telephone systems, cripple the economy, and bring on food shortages and anarchy.
Most people who read the newspapers or watch television are confused. Should they expect the world to go down in flames or merely be prepared for some annoying personal discomfort? Most regard Y2K with mild to moderate anxiety, and some are making modest contingency plans in case of shortages.
The United States is the world leader in fixing its problems, with a few other nations, including Australia, Canada and Great Britain, close behind. Other countries in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia, which already is in the midst of a serious economic crisis, lag in preparedness.
Y2K, to whatever extent, is guaranteed to happen. Digital devices, which are subject to the millennium bug, are present in every nook and cranny of life. The problem is worldwide and so enormous that there is not enough time to fix it completely. The extent of disruptions will depend on how many computer bugs can be detected and fixed before January 1 2000. Some can be fixed easily, while others contain 'embedded' microchips that must be replaced because the computer codes are 'burned' into them.
The Y2K angst is mounting. Will electric systems shut down and blackouts result? What will happen when businesses can't depend on their financial records to bill customers, and if government benefit cheques aren't issued properly? What if computers freeze up in railroads, elevators, factories, oil rigs, power plants, telephone systems, military communications, air traffic control systems, automated teller machines, security systems and home thermostats?
Will there be a domino effect? Will shutdowns to key factory equipment cause lay-offs and slow the economy? What if bank records are faulty? What if businesses sue the companies that provided them with software or embedded chips that malfunction because of Y2K, creating a tremendous volume of lawsuits?
'I'm becoming increasingly worried about the ripple effect of problems that will be difficult to anticipate and almost impossible to avoid,' says Ed Yourdon, a mainframe computer programmer who has written two dozen books on programming, including Time Bomb 2000 (Regency Publishing). Yourdon, a widely quoted Y2K pessimist, and his wife, Jennifer, recently sold their New York City apartment and moved to the mountains of Taos, New Mexico. He estimates that 100,000 people in the United States are preparing for catastrophic events.
John Baace of Gartner Research Group in Scottsdale, Arizona, which has studied the problem since 1989, says half of the companies around the world will experience disruptions of their operations. 'We stand on the threshold of an unpredictable and uncertain future,' he told the U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee on May 7. 'No one is completely sure what impact this year 2000 problem will have on us personally, on the economy or on society in general.'
Teotwawki
Occurrence of Y2K at the turn of the century has caused some to expect a millennial doomsday. The more extreme Y2K survivalists are whipping up hysteria and bunkering down in desolate locations in Oklahoma and Arkansas, far from cities, where they can store and grow food without fighting off hungry neighbours.
Extreme pessimists call it TEOTWAWKI (tee-OH-tawa-kee): The End Of The World As We Know It. One such person is Bryan Elder, 32, who was a marketing major at the University of Arkansas and ran a hydraulic service company until he began studying biblical prophesies and other 'spiritual texts' a few years ago. He is preparing for TEOTWAWKI, planning to live in a cave near Cassville, Montana, that accommodates 125 people for as long as seven years, he told The Dallas Morning News.
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