Wednesday, December 29, 1999
Banks, hospitals ready for Y2K
Extra staff will be on call just in case
BY CLIFF PEALE and MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Dawn Wilkinson of Colerain Twp. stocks up on food goods just in case.
(Tony Jones photo)
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It's been a thousand years in the making, but the end of the world — oops, the millennium — is less than three days away.
Major banks, stores and utilities reported Tuesday that after years of testing for Y2K problems costing millions of dollars, they are ready.
“It's been three years, and I'm looking at my Y2K countdown calendar and it says three days,” said Gary Yeager, vice president and Y2K coordinator at Fifth Third Bank. “I'm pretty happy.”
Systems experts will work through the night at Fifth Third's downtown headquarters, and branch managers will go to work early Saturday to check personal computers, utilities and other items, Mr. Yeager said.
Computer experts have been warning for years that when the clock strikes midnight, millions of computer chips will automatically think that it's 1900, not 2000. But only 7 percent of Americans expect major problems, accord ing to a survey from the National Science Foundation.
Fifth Third is among a host of companies advising customers to treat this weekend like a normal three-day holiday. Even though they don't expect serious glitches, most suggest keeping paper records, extra water, batteries and a little extra cash.
Lamont Miller of Bond Hill was shopping at Sam's Club on Tuesday, stocking up on canned goods, dried fruit and kerosene. He said he would spend about $300 extra on supplies to prepare for Y2K.
“Better safe than sorry,” he said. “They tell you to prepare for five days. Instead of five, I'm preparing for 20.”
Dawn Wilkinson of Colerain Township said her family's Y2K purchases included 55-gallon drums to store extra water.
“I don't know what's going to happen,” Ms. Wilkinson said. “But I figure whatever we bought, we'd use anyway. So we're prepared.”
Kroger stores nationwide have seen increased sales of bottled water, batteries and pharmaceutical products, spokesman Gary Rhodes said.
Customers will encounter nothing special at the stores this weekend, he said. “We're ready. We believe it will be a routine shopping day.”
Most local companies with huge computer networks have staffs ready to work through the night Friday.
“Everything is pretty much business as usual here, except for the stuff we're doing internally to verify systems,” said Libby Korosec, spokeswoman at Cincinnati Bell.
Hospitals say they're ready, too.
TriHealth hospitals — Bethesda North, Good Samaritan and Bethesda Oak — have spent 18 months planning for the changeover.
“We feel confident,” TriHealth spokesman Jeff Blunt said. “We've been running through various drills. We have compliance from our vendors. We have emergency power backup and emergency communications in place in case Cinergy or Cincinnati Bell go down.
“We'll have extra systems people, clinical staff and clinical support staff here. We're just as concerned about any disaster that could happen in the community. This is the biggest New Year's of our lives.”
Mercy Health Partners has taken advantage of double scrutiny, the result of Mercy's purchase earlier this year of two Franciscan hospitals and three long-term care centers, said Ray Pierangeli, Mercy's chief information officer.
“We successfully leveraged the work we were doing separately,” he said of Mercy's and Franciscan's Y2K readiness plans. “Our life-sustaining equipment, patient monitors, lab, radiology, pharmacy, medical records — everything has been tested 100 percent.”
Computer experts with the Health Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, an affiliation of six Tristate hospitals, started to identify potential Y2K problems in mid-1997, said spokeswoman Amy Bomar.
Administrators say the hospitals — Christ, University, Jewish, St. Luke East and West and Fort Hamilton — are well-prepared.
Officials at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport expect a slow night but will be ready for any Y2K glitches, spokesman Joe Feiertag said.
“A Friday midnight on a holiday weekend is going to be quiet,” he said. “There might normally be a couple of flights at midnight, but there's not enough paying customers for much more.”
The airport was built in stages, so terminals and runways built in the 1950s, '70s or '90s each have different technology, some more automated than others.
“Up until five or 10 years ago, a human being turned on the airfield lights manually,” Mr. Feiertag said.
“... In most cases, the computer just saves us steps.”
He said extra personnel will be at the airport in case something goes wrong.
Cincinnati Mayor Charlie Luken and other city officials are urging calm and say the city has been preparing for Y2K since 1995.
“It's important for citizens to realize that preparation is the key and that they should not buy into the hype surrounding Y2K,” Mr. Luken said.
The city's customer service hot line is 591-6000. The Cincinnati Water Works number is 591-7900.
Surveys have shown that many Americans plan to stay home New Year's Eve. The real action will be in corporate and government computer centers, where experts will test systems through midnight.
At Fifth Third, that “Y2K event” will extend from Friday afternoon through the middle of next week.
Cincinnati Bell will have about 100 workers either on site or on call. The utility recommends that customers not test phones immediately after midnight.
Cincinnati Bell has spent about $21 million preparing for Y2K, Ms. Korosec said.
“I think there will be a lot of people who are glad to have it behind them, but also relieved and happy to see that all their work was worth something,” she said. “A lot of people spent a lot of time on this.”
The Y2K impact first became clear to most Americans several years ago, when experts started warning that computers governing everything from the military to Social Security checks to prescriptions to cars to household appliances could be affected.
Since then, companies have spent billions of dollars to making their systems compliant. The federal government is even spending $50 million to operate an Information Coordination Center, which will monitor bugs at embassies and military bases 24 hours a day starting Friday.
Even that effort has not blunted the impact of the Y2K scare on some Americans. According to the National Science Foundation survey, nearly half will get written confirmation of financial records.
About 1 in 5 said they would set aside a large amount of cash, and 42 percent said they would stockpile food and water.
In some corners of the Tristate, people aren't worried. Several shoppers in Conover's Hardware store in Franklin, for instance, said they haven't done much to prepare for a Y2K event — and won't.
“I think it's a bunch of hooey,” said Sanford Schock of Franklin.
Greg Wells, who works at AK Steel in Middletown, said today's technology is strong and software engineers have been working on the problem for so long that he doesn't expect any disruptions.
“It's more hype than it is anything,” he said.
Steve Falearos of Franklin isn't worried about Y2K, either, but he sees at least one upside in the historic change.
“I'm getting ready to throw my computer out the window,” he said. “It gives me a good excuse.”
David Eck contributed to this report.
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