Y2K arrived in north country with few issues

Dec. 28—From Massena, where a duo began a millennium disaster food drive, to Glens Falls, where a company that supplied portable toilets saw a run on rentals, there were some serious preparations 25 years ago on the eve of the Y2K computer bug.

A look at Times' stories on the matter reflect a sense of calm preparation and a bit of alarm. But it was mostly a sense of the unknown as to what was to come.

In early 1997, Willie C. Kennedy Jr., Year 2000 Engagement Manager for KeyCorp., owner of Key Bank of New York, told the Times he had a recurring dream: as he drives to his first day of work in 2000, he notices that all the traffic lights are off. He arrives at work, swipes his access badge through a scanner, but he cannot get in. Then he tries to make a telephone call to report the problem, and the phone system is down.

"When Nostradamus predicted the end of world, I think this is what he meant," he said.

But he also replayed a happier scenario to himself. He is at a New Year's Eve party in a huge ballroom with every other computer programmer in the world. After the countdown of the last seconds of 1999, pagers start beeping and programmers leave in droves. But his own pager stays silent.

At the center of Y2K computer glitch concern was that some older computer systems listed years by the last two digits, such as 99 for 1999, rather than four digits. A computer could mistake 00 for the year 1900 with the arrival of 2000.

As the calendar flipped to 2000, Kennedy's scenario of silence regarding Y2K computer issues largely came to pass for north country residents. Locally, there were some hiccups, but no disasters. The fixes to prevent calamities were not cheap.

Watertown City Hall overcame anticipated Y2K compliance problems and upgraded its computer system by stuffing shortcomings with $697,000 ($1.3 million in today's dollars) for consultants and new hardware and software. Virtually every department relied on suppliers' assurances that the Y2K problem was licked. "We obviously didn't put out a city bid to buy hardware and software that would fail," City Manager Jerry C. Hiller told the Times.

On Jan. 2, 2000, Hiller said, "It was kind of anticlimactic."

The Y2K warnings arrived at a time when north country residents had chilling memories of the Great Ice Storm of 1998, which paralyzed the north country area and the Northeast. That ice storm hangover had not completely thawed. In an effort to be better prepared for the possibility of a loss of power on Dec. 31, David A. Luyk, station manager for WUZZ-AM, WTNY-AM, Z-93 and Froggy-97 purchased three commercial grade generators, one to power its offices at 134 Mullin St., the others to operate the FM stations and WTNY.

Thomas C. Bowman, director of Jefferson County emergency management, and Mark A. Pacilio, director of the local American Red Cross chapter, said in early December of 1999 that north country residents should prepare at least three days' worth of food in addition to some other supplies as they would for preparing for a winter storm.

"Our experience from the ice storm is that after three days, we're able to get outside resources," Mr. Bowman said. "We're putting a lot of stress on family preparedness. I don't think there's an awful lot that's going to happen, but it's better to prepare than hope for the best."

Approximately 20 people from various police and public service agencies rotated in two shifts manning the emergency operations center in the Jefferson County Office Building on New Year's Eve (a Friday night) and early New Year's day, waiting in readiness for glitches to strike.

"We called it the Y2K non-event practice run," Bowman said on Jan. 1 after the Y2K crew went home.

Some computers in the Jefferson County Office Building did hiccup on Monday, Jan. 3, the first day of business of 2000, with date-related glitches in the county's payroll and the treasurer's office.

Another glitch involved computerized judgment records at the county clerk's office administered by an outside firm. The issues were easily fixed, including one computer update that was sent by overnight mail from a firm in Troy, Michigan. Jefferson County spent just over $1 million (more than $1.5 million today) to bring the county's hardware and software into Y2K compliance.

Meanwhile, Massena's three big industries sailed through Y2K unscathed. For example, Alcoa Inc. had already shut down its Y2K command center at 1:20 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 1 after deciding at 1 a.m. that all of its systems were operational.

Y2K was also mostly a non-issue for north country broadcasters and telecommunications companies. The only reported problem occurred at WBQZ-TV in Watertown.

Ray Dobmeier, master control operator at WBQZ, said an old computer responsible for coordinating the entire station had problems with the 2000 date when it was rebooted Saturday morning. He manually punched in the correct date and got the computer back up and running.

Telephone companies echoed the no-news-is-good-news theme. Terry Stenzel of Cellular One told the Times that the company had about 50 extra people testing equipment at various locations on New Year's Eve. Nothing happened and testing was wrapped up by 2 a.m.

Geographic Internet Services Co., Clayton, reported no disruption of service.

The Y2K glitch did hit a half dozen St. Lawrence County police agencies in January of 2000 when new, high-tech blood alcohol testing machines failed to work properly. The machines differed from earlier versions because they were linked by a computer phone line to Albany. Data about suspected drunk drivers and the results of their breath tests were printed locally by the machines and transmitted to state computers in Albany.

Canton Police Chief Alan P. Mulkin said his department was the first to discover the glitch at about 4 a.m. on New Year's Day 2000 after a suspected drunken driver was stopped.

"When the operator got to the date of birth, it wouldn't take the date," Mulkin told the Times. "You couldn't get beyond that point. We ended up processing the suspect at the state police with their instrument."