Technology Experts Take Dim View of the Apocalyptic ‘Y2K’

SACRAMENTO — In NBC’s “Y2K,” a nuclear power plant near Seattle is only seconds away from a potentially catastrophic meltdown.

As revelers welcome the new year at Times Square in Manhattan, the entire Northeast suffers a paralyzing blackout. An airliner struggles to make a safe landing at a Southeastern airport where runway lights are suddenly dark. At a Texas prison, the cell doors swing open and rioting convicts burst out.

Around the world, the action thriller, which airs Sunday night, portrays horror after horror as critical computer systems fail at midnight, seemingly capturing the worst nightmares of doomsday as the calendar clicks from 1999 to 2000.

It is a fictional story, of course. But technology experts and a state official who viewed the movie at The Times’ request this week, suggest the result is the high-tech equivalent of shouting “Fire” in a crowded theater.

NBC displays a disclaimer at the start of the movie advising viewers that it was “not based on fact” and “does not suggest or imply that any of these events could actually occur.” And indeed, the technology and state experts who viewed the film dismissed it as a hyped, formulaic effort with little or no scientific basis.

But by portraying the specter of potential Y2K chaos, the officials contended, NBC and the filmmakers may have done some damage.

“Aside from the entertainment value, I personally have a difficult time recognizing the public good of this movie,” said David Lema, special Y2K advisor to Gov. Gray Davis.

Traumatic events of the kind dramatized in the movie are highly unlikely in California, where officials have been working overtime to ensure that critically important services will continue without disruption, according to government and private technology experts.

“It is a somewhat ridiculous scenario based on sheer fantasy and perhaps an overripe imagination,” Lema said of the program. “It seems to ignore all of the information that is being made available to the public from all circles, public and private.”

The movie also drew fire from a panel of executives at Government Technology who viewed the movie. Government Technology is a private organization that tracks and tries to find solutions to Y2K and other high-tech issues facing state and local governments around the nation.

Marina Leight, the firm’s executive director of events, criticized the movie as a sensationalist collection of “scare tactics” that “takes everyone’s worst fears and piles it all together,” but omits important features, such as contingency plans for emergencies.

She said Y2K preparedness “really has been the focus points for government agencies everywhere, to the exclusion of other projects. It’s been the No. 1 priority [in California].”

“It reduces Y2K to such typical television disaster movie cliches,” added Brian McDonough, news editor of Government Technology magazine.

At NBC in Burbank, which received a barrage of complaints about the movie, spokeswoman Shirley Powell defended the program as designed strictly for entertainment.

“It was never intended to be a documentary about Y2K or anyone’s preparedness,” said Powell, senior vice president of NBC entertainment publicity.

*

Although experts said it was “very unlikely” and “improbable” that events in the movie could occur in California as a result of computer error, they were careful not to rule out the possibility that some unforeseen emergency might occur.

“I’m not worried about critical systems failing because there has been a tremendous amount of time and energy spent to make sure they won’t fail,” said Alan M. Cox, national director of government services for Government Technology Conference, a division of Government Technology.

In case something is overlooked in the vast California state bureaucracy, Cox said, “there is a contingency plan to handle manually anything that comes up. It is a double-, triple-, quadruple-check. It’s been done.

“I just cannot buy the fact that all these things [in the movie] could happen, or that they could happen to that level,” he said.

However, Cox said that some noncritical computer systems may fail on New Year’s Day. Hypothetically, these might include such things as automated parking lots at airports or a system that handles state employee travel expenses, he said, adding that such minor inconveniences could easily be remedied by hand.

Likewise, he and others noted that routine power outages caused by storms or traffic accidents unrelated to Y2K issues are certain to occur on the New Year’s holiday, just as they do daily throughout the world.

“How many water mains break? How many trucks and cars crash?” he asked. “It will be a popular thing to wonder if this is a Y2K issue.”

Meantime, “mission critical” state computer systems, including those that issue welfare checks on time and give police information about criminals, for months have received aggressive preparations in anticipation of the Y2K click-over.

Lema, whom Davis appointed to make sure that critical California systems keep functioning, said he is confident that computer operations affecting the lives, safety and health of Californians will pass the test at midnight Jan. 1.

These systems, he said, already are very close to full readiness. “We will reach 100% well before the first of the year. That is the mandate, the target, and we are on track to achieving that goal,” Lema said.

Lema, Cox and others at Government Technology said they were stunned by the movie’s failure to give more than a passing mention to the billions of dollars--and effort--invested by governments and the private sector in preparedness.

At the urging of California officials, NBC posted the disclaimer, spokeswoman Powell said, to ensure that “viewers don’t take the movie for anything except what it is intended to be, which is entertainment.”

Anticipating that the show could touch off panic in the public, some industries appealed last week for NBC affiliates to air news programs that would put Y2K issues in a more accurate context. They included the Community Bankers Assn. of New York State and the Edison Electric Institute, which represents private utilities nationwide.

Fearing a Y2K-induced run on banks, Mariel Donath, president of the bankers group, expressed “grave concern” that the movie could trigger “unnecessary and dangerous panic on the part of vulnerable people who are not aware of the facts about Y2K and the banking system.” She said experts agreed banks are the safest place for money.

M. William Brier, a vice president of the Edison organization, insisted that the nation’s electric grid is “Y2K-ready today” but the television program may “unintentionally reinforce the beliefs of many individuals that a chaotic event is imminent.”