1st Day of Y2K Rollover Proves to Be Like Any Other Old Day

WASHINGTON —  The nation emerged Saturday from the 2000 computer rollover with only minor glitches and no discernible impact on the highly automated services that Americans rely on for everything from the power that heats their homes to the cash they get from ATMs.

“Critical systems in areas such as electric power, telecommunications, transportation and finance continue to function normally at this time with very few reports of difficulties related to the date change,” said John Koskinen, chairman of the President’s Council on Year 2000 Conversion.

The most significant mishap to surface Saturday appeared to be the temporary malfunction of a government reconnaissance satellite. And none of the reported problems, even those affecting airport warning systems and railroad tracking computers, interrupted basic services for Americans.

In the first real daylight tests of key computer systems after the Y2K rollover, the retail, power and banking industries reported that Americans were shopping, using electricity and withdrawing cash from ATMs with no apparent inconvenience.

The basic message of the smooth rollover is that the more than $100 billion invested by the American public and private sectors to fix the date-related computer problem represented a success, government and industry officials said.

The computer problem that inspired this staggering expenditure results from the fact that until recently, most computer coding was designed to read only the last two digits of a date. Unless repairs were made, the rollover to 2000 could have caused widespread computer failures.

Koskinen and industry representatives said there were enough glitches, even in systems that had been tested for the Y2K problem, that they are certain that failure to address the problem would have been very costly for a society as reliant on information technology as the United States.

Unable to Process Satellite Data

The computer troubles reported Saturday included:

* For about three hours starting at midnight Greenwich Mean Time (4 p.m. PST), ground computers could not process information transmitted by an intelligence satellite, according to Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre.

* Seven nuclear power plants reported minor troubles with systems not related to operations or safety. The plants’ operations were not affected, officials said, and the problems have been fixed. The plants include Palo Verde in Arizona, Nine Mile Point 1 in New York, Millstone 2 in Connecticut, Indian Point 3 in New York, Arkansas Nuclear in Arkansas, Pilgrim in Massachusetts and Monticello in Minnesota.

* Several electric utilities reported minor problems with the synchronization feature of the clocks used in their energy management system computers. The clocks were immediately reset with no impact on service.

* In aviation, wind-shear alert systems failed at Tampa, Fla., Denver, Atlanta, Orlando, Fla., Chicago and St. Louis airports during the rollover. System specialists re-booted the computers to clear the errors, and the longest fix took a little more than two hours.

* In Omaha a security access system froze in an open position in a federal building because of a malfunction in a clock system. The clock was reset to 1972, a gimmick used to avoid the Y2K problem, and the system is now operating normally.

* The date posted on the U.S. Naval Observatory Web page read 19100 for a brief period after the rollover because of a Y2K glitch, but it has been fixed.

* A problem with the computer system at Amtrak’s control center prevented the program from retaining train symbols and automatically tracking trains, But technicians entered the train numbers manually and operations weren’t impeded, officials said. The problem has been fixed.

Overall, despite months of dire predictions by those who feared substantial Y2K troubles, Saturday appeared to be like any other day in America’s high-tech economy, with computers working reliably--most of the time--to invisibly aid Americans in their everyday tasks.

In a symbolic act, Donna Tanoue, the nation’s top banking regulator, withdrew $20 from an ATM a block from the White House. Her agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which safeguards consumer deposits by guaranteeing all accounts up to $100,000, was in the midst of a systematic telephone survey of the nation’s 10,000 banks to see how they were faring under the threat of Y2K disruptions.

Banks Free of Problems

No problems were reported at the small number of banks open for business on New Year’s Day, or the much larger number where computers were operating to process the transactions of the previous week. Some banks use service providers, or specialized companies that handle the computerized financial record-keeping, and these firms, too, reported near-flawless operations on Saturday.

The FDIC had its own personnel stationed at some of the biggest banks and major service providers, but they found no problems, according to FDIC officials.

Similar good news was reported by credit unions. Federal regulators had contacted about 2,500 of the 11,000 credit unions and “everything seems to be going smoothly,” said Bob Loftus, public affairs director for the National Credit Union Administration, the federal regulatory agency.

The first day of 2000 was “pretty uneventful” for the nation’s hospitals, said Dionne Dougall, a spokeswoman for the American Hospital Assn.

At the UCLA Medical Center, everything continued to operate without mishaps: Medical devices, elevators, water and power and computer systems all performed normally.

“It was--you’ll pardon the expression--dead,” said David Langness, a spokesman for the center.

The nation’s large retailers, which were working full-tilt Saturday, experienced no Y2K troubles, according to Cathy Hotka, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation, which represents most major retail stores.

IBM, Sun Microsystems, Dell and Compaq all reported that their customers had virtually no problems.

So Far, So Good Around the World

Contrary to expectations, reports from the rest of the world were also positive, with little evidence of failures of key infrastructures. One exception was the small West African nation of Gambia, which suffered power outages connected to the Y2K problem.

“I was surprised. Nowhere in the world was there infrastructure collapse,” said Hewlett-Packard Y2K leader Bernard de Valence.

Koskinen expressed confidence that America will meet the first workday of the new year with similar success. But he warned that some other nations, particularly developing countries, could still suffer interruptions of their vital services because of Y2K-related problems in the coming days if multiple glitches cause system degradation.

“If we get through Monday and Tuesday as well as we’ve gotten through this weekend, then I think that we will feel very comfortable that there aren’t going to be, around the world, major problems,” Koskinen said.

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Times staff writers Judy Pasternak, Marlene Cimons, Eric Lichtblau and Art Pine in Washington and Joseph Menn in San Francisco contributed to this story.