Y2K Dry Run
While cities across the nation fear a computer breakdown on Jan. 1, 2000, one Texas city has decided not to wait for the millennium.
Officials in Lubbock, Texas, ran a citywide simulation Wednesday of the chaos to occur if the city's most essential computers failed because of internal clocks not designed to recognize the year 2000.
Lubbock, located in the south plains of Texas, has a particular challenge in that it owns and operates an electric utility. Lubbock Power and Light serves 65 percent of the city's nearly 200,000 residents.
Called the "Y2K Dry Run," the effort was a "paper drill" only, with simulated emergencies. It did not involve the actual interruption of electricity, water, traffic lights, or any other service.
The test was the nation's first citywide millennium bug simulation. It is intended to prepare emergency officials for the worst-case scenario of what could happen to America's cities at the turn of the century.
Some computer scientists claim that when the dreaded millennium bug hits, possible failures effecting cities include aircraft systems, life support equipment, water supply operations, and traffic signals.
Among the simulations were a prison riot, a cold front icing streets and causing power outages, and a failure in the city's 911 system.
City manager Bob Cass, scheduled to testify about the experience Friday before a U.S. Senate committee, said the clear lesson was that cities risk being blindsided if they do not work on contingency plans.
"This is one disaster that we know exactly when it could occur, but it's also the one disaster that we have no idea how bad it will be," Cass said.
In advance of the drill, city officials said that scenarios not associated with Y2K would also be added to ensure police department, fire department, and other critical services could handle a variety of situations.
Exactly when it would occur, or what it would involve, was kept secret until the drill started Wednesday evening. Test conductors sent email to city officials notifying them of mock natural disasters or failed systems. Emergency officials , including police, fire, and utility workers, then had to react. A system was set up to judge response times.
At emergency management headquarters, officials frantically practiced deploying police officers to respond to problems and posted red flags on a giant city map to highlight emergency areas.
The illusion was made complete with reporters summoned for press conferences, and mock reports from a National Weather Service official.
As the drill began, officials were told the city's 911 emergency system had failed. The emergency management team quickly switched over to a county system and broadcast two new police and fire department emergency numbers on television.
Mayor Windy Sitton said the test revealed that city needs to study how to better respond to natural gas shortages. When fake gas outages left hundreds of homes without hat, officials had to devise a plan to set up shelters in the parts of town that still had power.