WASHINGTON (AP) — The government offered the first public glimpse of its new $50 million Y2K nerve center, a highly computerized crisis room near the White House designed to track failures worldwide caused by the Year 2000 technology problem. President Clinton’s top Y2K adviser, John Koskinen, said the administration continues to believe there will be no major national problems, but said its Information Coordination Center will watch for “some glitches” anticipated during the New Year’s date rollover.
“We hope that night will be really boring,” said Koskinen, standing before a glass-empaneled room filled with high-end computers and digital maps showing global time zones. He called it “the one place in the world with the most complete information.”
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The government has begun cautioning against panic as people discover problems during the New Year’s weekend, since some non-Y2K computer failures might simply coincide with the date rollover.
“We’ll have failures from time to time whether you have a century date change or not,” said Skip Patterson, who runs the Year 2000 program for Bell Atlantic Corp. Experts have previously warned of widespread phone outages if everyone tried to make a call around midnight — what Koskinen described as “Mother’s Day by multiples.”
Nationwide almost every day, for example, some Internet sites crash, electricity temporarily fails or airline flights are delayed. In the earliest hours of Jan. 1, whether problems were caused by the Y2K bug or something else might be impossible to determine . The presumption is to blame all failures on Y2K that weekend, Koskinen said.
About 10 percent of all credit transactions fail routinely because, for example, equipment breaks down or because consumers are overextended or forget their ATM password, said Paul Schmelzer, an executive vice president for Orlando, Fla.-based Star Systems Inc., which process about 2 billion financial transactions annually.
He expects those same problems to show up Jan. 1.
“What consumers need to do if they go to an ATM on New Year’s Day and find for whatever reason they can’t get service, they should do what they do today — go find a machine down the block or get cash back in the grocery store,” Schmelzer said. “Let’s don’t immediately assume we’ve got some serious Y2K problems.”
The government’s Y2K crisis center is hardly a bunker _ it’s on the 10th floor of a downtown building just blocks from the White House _ but it includes backup communications systems and entrance guards.
Reports of any problems — rated “minor” or “significant” — will be shared with the White House and top government officials who will decide what to do. Information overseas will be fed by the State and Defense departments and industry groups, starting at roughly 6 a.m. EST Dec. 31, when midnight falls worldwide first in New Zealand.
A flurry of activity is expected as midnight arrives across U.S. time zones, with more attention starting midday EST Jan. 2 as employees worldwide begin returning to their offices _ and turning on their computers _ for the first time since the date change.
