Y2K UPDATE
Nothing has really changed since our report on Y2K in the Winter 1998 North Coast Xpress. For example:
·Over 30% of banks responding to a Weiss Y2K readiness survey admit missing the Y2K compliance deadline. (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990210/fl_weiss_r_1.html)
·Medicare is late on Y2K. It processes 17 million transactions each day and has 70 independent contractors that write one billion checks a year. These contractors are not yet compliant (www.ntgov.com/gcn/gcn/1999/january11/13a.htm).
·Over 50% of the U.S. nuclear plants are in the assessment phase which completes only 7% of a Y2K repair project, not counting embedded chips (www.newsbytes.com/pubNews/124358.html).
·There is no evidence the international oil industry will operate after 1/1/2000 (www.house.gov/reform/gmit/hearings/testimony/9901201g.htm).
·The Senate is helping the Defense Department and the CIA keep Americans in the dark about Y2K (http://prorev.com).
·The Pentagon wants President Clinton to name a military commander for the continental United States who can order thousands of doctors, stretchers, and emergency personnel quickly sent to stricken areas, etc. (http://prorev.com/mil2.htm). You get the picture.
Meanwhile, Federal Emergency Management Agency officials urge the emergency management, fire and emergency services communities and the public to get ready now for Y2K.
Neighborhood Preparedness
The Marin County, California, Y2K Task Force proposes the following:
·An AM-band radio station that can be received by anyone in the county on any radio receiver. It could be operated in either of two modes: (1) strictly on an emergency basis, (2) as a more-or-less full time station that would engage the community's participation and the transmitter would be capable of operating independently of the power grid indefinitely.
·Mobile medical units that could be parked conspicuously in the downtown areas of each town of any size.
·Mobile emergency pharmacies that would stock drugs such as insulin, thyroid and other critical medications and rotate among the various towns on a daily basis.
Of the many Y2K websites now online, the Napa Valley, California, website offers the most helpful suggestions for neighborhood and community organizing (see www.y2kneighborhoods.com/).
1. The best way to prepare for Y2K is through "neighborhood-based community preparation." It does little good to be the only home in the neighborhood ready for Y2K, particularly if your unprepared neighbors noticed you stocking up on supplies. But if your entire neighborhood is prepared, you have real security. Plus, your neighborhood can lobby city and county governments to make sure they're ready. And those governments can assist an organized neighborhood more easily than they can individual homes. By looking after your neighborhood, you look after yourself and your family.
2. First, determine what your neighborhood is. In an urban area, it might be one block of a street. In the rural countryside, a much larger area. In a suburb, several blocks, a large cul-de-sac, or a cluster of units in a condominium complex. And keep in mind that the boundaries you originally determine may change as you begin to organize.
3. Start talking to people you already know, and introduce yourself to others. Tell them about Y2K. You might hand out or mail Y2K information to your neighbors or hold a meeting at your home, a local school, church, or other community-focused building.
Neighbors can discuss sharing tools, planting a neighborhood garden, and ensuring food and water supplies. If there are elderly and disabled in your area, plan who will look after them-and how-should any sort of emergency occur. To plan for possible school closures, consider a central meeting point where children can gather under adult supervision for the duration of the closures. If there's a ham radio operator in your area, ask about that person's role in an emergency.
Once your neighborhood starts to get organized, contact other neighborhoods and work with them to lobby elected officials, government agencies, public utilities and the like to make sure they're doing everything they can to prepare for Y2K.
A Step by Step Plan
1. Hold a comfortable, informal neighborhood meeting, with snacks and light beverages. Include teenagers and older children who wish to get involved. Schedule regular meetings thereafter, with at least every 2nd or 3rd meeting a social event as well, so people can socialize and get to know each other.
2. Make and distribute a list of everyone's name, address, phone number, fax number and email address.
3. Set up a "phone tree" to notify neighbors about meetings, events and other timely information.
4. Identify the elderly, disabled and others needing special care and attention.
5. Create a Skills Inventory for members of your neighborhood (medical, first aid, alternative healing, midwifery, ham radio, teaching, carpentry, electrical, plumbing, music, firearms, mechanic, welding, computer, gardening, cooking, canning, childcare, etc.).
6. Create a Resource Inventory of "things" owned by people in the neighborhood that they are willing to share. Wells and other water sources, well drilling equipment, garden tools, firewood, barbecues, generators, fuel, chain saws, radio amateur and CB radios- anything that could be used by, or provide service to, more than one family.
7. Plan individual and neighborhood gardens. Be ready to plant in Spring 1999 and use non-hybrid "open pollination" seeds so that you'll be able to save your own seeds and grow healthy plants year after year..
8. Make contingency plans for sanitation (camping toilets, porta-potties, outhouses, composting toilets), for childcare and neighborhood schooling.
9. Discuss having a neighborhood "shelter" that would have light, heat, water, sanitation facilities and food for any members of the neighborhood who might need it.
10. Discuss the possibility of providing neighborhood security. The idea of potential looters is an unpleasant topic, as is the idea of firearms, but it needs to be faced. Decide how you as a neighborhood wish to deal with such an eventuality and prepare accordingly. Civil disorder is part of a worst-case scenario when law enforcement services may be hampered by Y2K problems.
11. Try to get everyone in the neighborhood actively involved with worthwhile tasks to do. Panic will hit those who feel helpless, not those who are actively preparing.
12. Keep an eye on the larger community. Lobby local city and county governments to ensure that drinking water, food distribution, power, telephone, sewage, law enforcement, ambulance, fire, medical/health, and schools continue to function after January 1, 2000.
13. Consider using a neighborhood school, business, church, or other building as a place for one or more neighborhoods to meet and plan regularly. Perhaps equipment and supplies can be stored at this location as well, particularly goods and tools which might be needed, but not needed by every home.
When you have an entire neighborhood organizing, your purchasing leverage increases. You should be able to negotiate group discounts and bulk purchases, since many of your neighbors will want to purchase the same things.
Action
1. Set up a steering committee.
2. Consider who you want to influence:
(a) General public--the "shotgun" or "a rising tide lifts all boats" approach. Go for the public and let it lobby influential leaders of the community.
(b) Influential leaders-the "rifle" approach. Go for the decision makers in your community. Elected officials, heads of chambers of commerce and service clubs, business leaders, school superintendents, religious leaders, media executives.
(c) Existing emergency response infrastructure. Target the pros. Go for the emergency professionals, the key people in local government, fire departments, police departments, Red Cross, social service agencies, volunteer organizations, hospitals and public utilities who have experience dealing with past emergencies and who know what needs to be done to prepare for one.
3. Develop presentation materials: brochures and document handouts, video presentations, books, PowerPoint presentations, slides, etc.
4. Decide what results you want, for example:
--Believable assurances ·
that phone, power, water and sewage systems will function-and contingency plans in case they don't.
· that financial institutions will function-and contingency plans such as local currency in case they don't.
· that supermarkets will continue to function and offer adequate food-and contingency plans in case they don't.
· that local healthcare facilities will continue to provide services, and that treatment and medications will be available no matter what· that fire, ambulance and police services will continue to function
· that local radio stations are Y2K compliant and will have power to broadcast information to the community.
--Establishment of a neighborhood "Y2K Victory Garden"
· a neighborhood Y2K preparation program
·city-wide/county-wide Y2K task forces that include public members as well as governmental
· measures to assure that the elderly, disabled, sick, and others who are homebound will be looked after
· plans to ensure that possible refugees from the cities are treated properly without being a disruption to the community
· a Y2K Non-Profit Alert program in cooperation with a Coalition of Non-Profits to ensure that local non-profit organizations are ready for Y2K.