Text: McConnell on Global Effects of Y2K

Infrastructure more resilient than expected

Washington -- Bruce McConnell, director of the International Y2K Cooperation Center, says there continue to be no reports of serious disruptions anywhere in the world due to the year 2000 (Y2K) computer problem.

McConnell, in a statement to reporters January 3, said "localized glitches" will probably continue to emerge over the weeks ahead, but that they will occur sporadically, not simultaneously. "Although they will, in some cases, temporarily degrade quality of service, we do not expect them to proliferate or interact to cause any serious disruptions."

It was believed by some that computer systems might stop working due to the Y2K problem, causing electrical power grids, water systems or energy supply systems to fail.

When asked why there were not a lot more Y2K-caused failures around the world, especially in countries that had spent far less time and money than the United States in preparing for the year 2000, McConnell said that most countries do not use Y2K-vulnerable digital controls for things like the production of power or telecommunications.

"Digital computers are primarily used to provide management information," he said. "When they fail they can gum up the works or degrade quality, but they don't cause actual service failures. For that reason we were not surprised that there were no major disruptions."

McConnell also admitted that Y2K experts may have overestimated "by a little bit" the Y2K vulnerability of infrastructure systems like power grids, telecommunications and air traffic. "In the air traffic area...there are manual processes that they go to all the time when there are power outages or the radar goes down," he said. "So that kind of risk management culture in critical service areas has probably mitigated the threat."

Following is the text of McConnell's statement:

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Statement of Bruce W. McConnell, Director,
International Y2K Cooperation Center
3 January 2000
Washington, DC, USA

As of this morning all is going very well. We continue to have no reports of serious disruptions anywhere in the world. We have now received "all green" reports from 135 countries.

On our international conference call this morning with Y2K coordinators from 10 countries, all participants reported that they were relaxing their monitoring operations and going to a more normal operating schedule.

We are proud of the responsible and measured approach taken by countries around the world to address the potentially serious impacts of the Y2K computer problem. Without this work, serious disruptions would have occurred. We were ready for that potential. Unprecedented international cooperation, a resilient infrastructure, and the dedicated efforts of millions of Y2K workers have given us this exciting success. We are grateful for their hard work and for the good luck that have made this possible.

We expect localized glitches and hiccups to continue to emerge over the weeks ahead. However, we are confident that these will be handled in the course of normal operations. This is because they will be localized and will occur sporadically, not simultaneously. Although they will in some cases temporarily degrade quality of service, we do not expect them to proliferate or interact to cause any serious disruptions.

We have reports of individual failures. These range from the critical to the trivial. In the former category, yesterday we alerted our world contacts of a newly discovered failure in a kidney dialysis machine manufactured by a Swedish-based company. The automatic disinfection feature does not operate properly, risking transmission of infection from one patient to the next. This failure was noticed in Scotland on Saturday and the information picked up by our international health care team led by Ms. Kate Priestly of the United Kingdom's National Health Services Estates. The UK Medical Devices Agency has also posted an alert on this device.

On the trivial side, Namibia reports that their radio station computer that schedules advertisements failed to function correctly. Advertisements are being scheduled manually and being aired as normal.

Support for Y2K work must continue where it has not been completed. This is particularly true in nuclear energy plants in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. However, because the systems involved solely provide management information, the fact that this work has not yet been completed does not pose any immediate safety threat whatsoever.

Y2K has taught us much about how the world works. The world is both more resilient and more connected than we knew. Working together, nations are capable of managing a tough global challenge. The worlds information systems have had a complete work-over, and they are now passing the physical. We're in good shape for the new century.

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