Minimizing The Millennium How We Prepare - And Cooperate - Before January 1, 2000, May Prove More Important Than Any Computer Glitches
It began as a joke.
Writers for NBC’s “Tonight Show” took a minor news item — a congressman lamenting the federal government’s trouble getting bids on toilet paper — and exaggerated it for a laugh.
“You know what’s disappearing from supermarket shelves?” Johnny Carson asked during his monologue one December night 25 years ago. “Toilet paper. There’s an acute shortage of toilet paper in the United States.”
Ha, ha, ha…yikes! Millions of late-night TV viewers rushed to supermarkets the next morning and stocked up on TP. By noon, most stores had sold their last roll.
Carson quickly apologized for the remark, but the panic took on a life of its own. Three weeks passed before grocers could restock shelves and calm nervous consumers.
How could a comedian’s comment trigger a national stampede?
Because the early ‘70s were anxious times. An Arab oil embargo caused long lines at gas stations. Americans felt vulnerable.
And guess what: A year from now, Americans are likely to feel vulnerable again.
As the calendar approaches Jan. 1, 2000, people will read increasingly sensational headlines, listen to agitated talk-show hosts and wonder whether they have enough food, fuel, cash and toilet paper to survive the worst-case scenarios described by Year 2000 (Y2K) fearmongers.
Whether or not the so-called “millennium bug” causes a cascade of computer failures may turn out to be less important than how rationally we act in the weeks and months leading up to Jan. 1.
If people take sensible precautions and work together, Y2K may be remembered as a landmark in self-sufficiency and community cooperation.
But if last-minute hoarding, distrust and “every man for himself” attitudes reign, we’re all in for a bumpy ride.
No wonder people feel nervous.
Standing in supermarket lines, shoppers scan a tabloid cover that shouts “January 1, 2000: The Day the Earth Will Stand Still!”
Walk into local bookstores and you’ll find paperbacks prophesying a computer-glitch Armageddon: “Time Bomb 2000” … “The Millennium Meltdown” … “Y2K: It’s Already Too Late.”
If suggestions like these make you uncomfortable, that’s normal, says Spokane psychologist Frank Hamilton. What’s important is how you handle that nervousness.
“A lot of people have anxiety just under the surface. It’s part of what makes us who we are,” explains Hamilton.
“Someone who can look at (Y2K) and say this may be a problem, and this is what I’ll do about it - that’s OK.
“If spending some money on candles and bottled water makes people feel better, fine. They can always use the stuff later.
“It’s when extreme worry takes over and people do irrational things they wouldn’t ordinarily do - that’s when anxiety becomes problematic.”
“Part of our responsibility now,” says Heidi Stanley, executive vice president of Sterling Savings Bank, “is to work toward (Y2K) solutions without causing a level of panic that could make the problem worse.”
Yes, some bank computers may gag on the year 2000. But computer glitches already occur.
“We have other ways to access account information,” Stanley says. “We have lots of records.
“The computer system is the least of my worries over Y2K,” she says. “My real concern is that many older people who lived through the Depression are being misled” by millennium alarmists. “My mother asks me questions about Y2K because she stands in the grocery and reads The Star too much.”
Stanley says bankers everywhere wonder if frantic people will empty their accounts as the year 2000 approaches.
“The federal government is working to make sure we don’t have a liquidity problem,” she says.
Yet having the ability to keep handing cash through the teller window could be a mixed blessing, Stanley points out.
Yes, it would defuse a run on banks. But, “Do you want your mom walking down the street with $2,000 in her purse?”
Bruce Smith, a 38-year veteran of the petroleum distribution business, calls Y2K “the biggest joke that ever hit.”
“Do you think the oil companies are going to lose a day’s revenue” by allowing Y2K to shut them down? “No way. No way!”
But Smith acknowledges motorists could create a temporary fuel shortage by topping off every vehicle’s gas tank.
“Average people run around with half a tank of fuel,” he explains. “You multiply half a tank by one million cars (locally).
“If everybody decides to fill up, supply can’t keep up.
“Y2K isn’t the issue,” scoffs Smith. “Hoarding is the issue.”
A favorite prediction among Y2K doomsayers is a Wall Street selloff. Jeffrey Grant writes in his book, “The Millennium Meltdown”: “We face the risk of the greatest stock market crash since 1929.”
Coeur d’Alene broker Mark Bowlby, a vice president with D.A. Davidson, has advised clients through three major market dips in the past two decades: The Crash of 1987; the slide prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War; and the Dow’s recent 19-percent “correction.”
Bowlby doesn’t pretend to know what impact Y2K will have on stocks. And he readily acknowledges Wall Street’s fickleness; he calls the stock market “a human emotion curve.”
Bowlby says market prices fluctuate back and forth between “peaks of greed” and “valleys of fear,” with the market’s true, intrinsic value somewhere in the middle.
“Sure, we’re concerned about the effect of Y2K,” admits Bowlby, “because nobody knows for sure what will happen.
“But if you go back in your history books, you see that stocks tend to climb a wall of worry over time, and this is just another worry we’ll have to deal with. We’re still bullish long-term.”
One of the best places to get Y2K misinformation is supermarket checkout lines. It’s no exaggeration to say tabloid newspapers eagerly stretch the truth to grab potential readers.
Could headlines such as the one that ran in Weekly World News’ Sept. 15 Y2K issue - “FOOD SUPPLIES WILL BE DEPLETED!” - turn into self-fulfilling prophecies?
“Grocery stores have a three- to four-day supply” of food, says Bill Haraldson, Rosauers chief operating officer. “Maybe a little less, depending on what items (desperate shoppers) would buy.
“They could easily wipe out the water section in a day.”
Haraldson says he’s confident Rosauers’ computers can handle the leap into 2000. But he also remembers the Johnny Carson-inspired run on toilet paper.
“We don’t have the capacity to put an extra month’s worth of food in our grocery stores,” he says. “It wouldn’t fit. And our back rooms won’t hold more.”
Haraldson doesn’t expect Y2K to disrupt the normal flow of food as long as people stock up gradually and don’t panic at the last minute.
“But there are a lot of survivalists out there,” Haraldson says, “and I’m sure there are a few more who are but don’t know it yet.”
No amount of reassurance will prevent some last-minute hoarding, Haraldson predicts. And that could leave a few holes in inventory.
But the 1973 toilet-paper scare soon eased, and Rosauers’ boss figures so will any Y2K shortages.
As deputy director of Spokane city/county emergency management, Dave Byrnes encourages people to routinely keep enough food and water on hand to meet short-term needs.
“Every time I give a talk, people say, ‘What if power’s out a week?’ ‘What if it’s out a month?’ I’ve even had people ask, ‘What if it’s out for a year?’ “You can go on and on as to how bad things might get,” says Byrnes. “We recommend (being prepared for) three days. Usually by then you have time to make some other plans.”
Besides food, water and fuel, he recommends having emergency medication, batteries - and a few coins.
“Sometimes people need to use a pay phone because theirs doesn’t work, and they don’t have any money,” he points out.
“And don’t wait until the last minute,” Byrnes says. “Do like people did years ago, when they had pantries.
“We’re not treating Y2K different than any other hazard,” Byrnes insists. “But the fact is, government can’t take care of this community’s 500,000 people if there’s a real disaster.
“We need to be ready to take care of ourselves, our families and our neighbors.”
Byrnes compares Y2K to a hurricane.
“You know Y2K is coming, just like you know a few days in advance when a hurricane might hit the beach. We hope people are preparing, and we also hope this particular hurricane - Y2K - turns out to be just a little storm.”
Besides, says Byrnes, “We’re not all that helpless. It’s just that we’ve become so dependent on technology that we think we are. People are used to flipping on a light switch, and if nothing happens, we panic.”
Business consultant Meg Wheatley, author of “Leadership and the New Science” and “A Simpler Way,” says you can’t take anyone’s word for what will happen when computer calendars roll over to 1-1-00, “because everybody has different opinions, and any one of them could be right, based on certain assumptions.”
But she’s convinced of one thing: pre-Y2K panic represents a bigger threat than the millennium bug itself.
Even so, “I’m quite optimistic that there’s still enough time to mobilize communities and prepare for the kinds of service interruptions that are bound to happen,” says Wheatley, “even if we can’t predict whether we’re going to lose electricity for two days or two weeks.”
And she sees a silver lining to all the hand-wringing that’s sure to take place during the next 12 months.
“Y2K will force us to look around,” says Wheatley, “to rediscover the things we truly value.
“It’s a chance to ask ourselves what we want to create in terms of neighborliness, outreach and generosity.”
Local Y2K organizer Judy Laddon agrees.
“If we only act individually, and the worst happens, we could be in trouble,” says Laddon, author of “Awakening: The Upside of Y2K.”
“But if we pool our strengths and act as a community, then we can sail through any scenario. And caring about each other is a better way to live, no matter what happens.”
Illustration by Knight Ridder Tribune
How to prepare
Some Year 2000 (Y2K) experts predict computer-related problems will start disrupting government benefit payments and other services in early 1999. The consequence could be a ripple of panic — and that might actually be good, they say. Y2K consultant Douglass Carmichael likens it to artificially triggering a small avalanche, so pressure doesn’t build up and cause a big one. If you’re considering taking precautions, here are some tips suggested by Michael Hyatt, author of “The Millennium Bug: How to Survive the Coming Chaos” (Regency, $24.95): * Secure hard copies of important documents. * Gather emergency-preparedness literature. * Stockpile food, water and common household items, including a battery-operated radio and spare batteries. * Develop an alternative source of heat and energy. * Prepare an emergency medical kit. * Determine how you will dispose of waste. * Acquire a basic selection of hand tools.