John A. Campau’s 4,000 customers – banks, jewelry stores, and
private homeowners are counting on him for their safety come midnight New Year’s
Eve.
Campau isn’t a cop or a doctor; he’s president of Comtronics in
Jackson, a 24-hour security alarm monitoring company. After investing thousands
of dollars, he’s confident the so-called “Y2K” computer bug won’t affect his
monitoring systems, or customers’ security set-ups.
But he and nine other staffers will keep watch at the office
when the clock hits 12:01 a.m. January 1 – just to be safe.
“We’ve been preparing for this for two years,” Campau said.
“We’ve spent $150,000 and upgraded all of our computers and software. All of our
computers are Y2K compliant. As you can imagine, with 4,000 customers, we’ve
been planning.”
The Comtronics staff working New Year’s Eve won’t be the only
ones at their desks instead of on the dance floor. Thousands of companies will
have extra staff on hand to monitor problems that may occur because of the
potential computer glitch Y2K.
The concern is that computers may not recognize the “00” in
2000 when their internal clocks click to midnight, January 1, identifying the
year instead as 1900 and throwing programs into chaos. Some fear government,
banks, utilities and businesses will shut down.
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Citizen Patriot · Marcia Butterfield |
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Comtronics Alarm Center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and
serves 4,000 customers in five
states. | |
Since computers run practically everything these days, utility
workers will be on the clock in case water, sewer, electric or gas systems go
down. Police and firefighters, doctors and nurses, reporters and bankerss,
managers and company presidents will all be working at least through
midnight.
Consumers Energy will increase its usual statewide New Year’s
Eve crew from 500 to 2,000, involving everyone from supervisors to technicians,
according to Charles MacInnis, head of information services in Jackson. Dozens
more of the company’s 9,000 employees will be on call.
“We will have operating employees at substations around the
state,” MacInnis said. “They can respond in the event something unforseen crops
up.”
After numerous tests since Consumers first began preparing for
Y2K in 1995, MacInnis said the company expects no disruption in the flow of gas
and electricity.
“We are anticipating an uneventful evening,” he
said.
Consumers always has staff working New Year’s Eve because of
potential weather-related outages. This year, the company is hoping people won’t
panic if nasty winter conditions cause outages and blame it on Y2K.
“Our focus is going to be on rapid communication with the media
throughout the evening,” he said. He’s working through the night with 12 other
news and information staffers to keep the media informed of events. “I think a
lot of people have been interested in this issue,” MacInnis said.
Reprinted with permission from The Jackson Citizen
Patriot
Copyright December 1999
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