national

A NATIONAL PLAN FOR Y2K RECOVERY
by Stuart A. Umpleby

The present official government position on the year 2000 computer
problem (or y2k) is that there will be some disruption. The amount of
disruption might be large. Contingency planning within government
agencies is beginning now. However, contingency planning for society as a
whole is being postponed until the spring of 1999 when the government will
have a better idea of what might fail. This paper is based on several
assumptions:
1. Society as a whole should begin planning based on a worst case
scenario, not because we believe the worst case will happen, but simply
because it might. And if we wait any longer to begin preparing, we will
not have sufficient time to do so.
2. Preparing for a worst or bad case scenario requires equipment
which must be produced. There is already very little time, and in some
cases insufficient time, to produce this equipment.
3. The people most in danger are not people threatened by
chemical spills, nuclear reactor accidents, or failures of subways,
trains, or planes. These events can be prevented simply by not operating
any equipment until it has been thoroughly checked. The people most at
risk are those who depend on large utilities for water, heat, light, and
food. Most of these people live in urban areas.
4. If people are to move into more sustainable locations than
urban areas, they will need time to identify where they will go and to
prepare these locations.
5. Beginning on 1/1/2000 the principal task will be to minimize
the recovery period, which I would define as about 90% of utilities
working and 90% of living units habitable. It is essential to minimize
the recovery period. The longer the disruption lasts, the more families
will exhaust their food inventory, the more business and community
contingency planning will prove to be insufficient, and the greater the
anger at political and economic leaders.
6. If we strive to minimize the period of disruption, there are
essentially three populations: a) Those people working on fixing and
maintaining equipment -- programmers, engineers, maintenance people,
police, fire, and core administrative staff; b) People not essential to
repairing equipment -- mostly white collar workers such as lawyers,
accountants, professors, advertisers, children and non-working parents;
c) People who need to stay in the city for access to services, for
example people in hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutions.
7. As many people as possible should become self-sufficient in
water, food and fuel. This will reduce the demand for services which may
be in short supply.
8. The best way for urban dwellers to become self-sufficient, or
nearly so, is to move to a small town, ideally to stay with a relative or
family friend, until the cities recover.
9. Assuming there will be some loss of utility services, there
are two ways to make the transition to a new sustainable level. Either we
can attempt to maintain the current mode of living and encounter a
sequence of disappointments and frustrations as we encounter a continuing
series of obstacles to obtaining resources and services. Or we can jump
back to a lower level of dependence on services and simply wait until
repairs are made before returning to our previous lives. The first
alternative would consume petroleum resources needlessly and would be very
destructive psychologically and politically. The second alternative
allows people to be more in control of the transition to lower levels of
consumption.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ECONOMY

This plan calls for stockpiling food and other goods. Hence,
demand will be shifted from 2000 to 1999. Even if disruption caused by
equipment failures is minimal, this shift in demand can be expected to
cause a recession in 2000 due to lower consumption as people use up their
inventories. However, the cost of overpreparing in the event of little
disruption is minor relative to the cost of underpreparing in the event
of large disruption.
This plan assumes that large parts of the economy will "go on
holiday" until utilities and suppliers are functioning again. If there is
a large amount of disruption, large parts of the economy will not be
operating. The question is how much control we shall have over the
transition to a lower level of production and how fast we can recover.

EQUIPMENT

Before electricity and petroleum, people led comfortable lives. However, they had equipment that we do not have, for example steam
locomotives, horses, and horse-drawn wagons. There is not enough time to
produce these things. However there is time to produce more bicycles and
adult-sized tricycles. Tricycles are more stable than bicycles and can
carry more weight. They can be used to carry packages, children, or an
elderly passenger. Other equipment for a sustainable lifestyle would
include wood stoves, windmills to generate electric power, propane tanks,
solar hot water heaters, wind-up radios, etc. It seems to me that
production of this equipment should be dramatically increased now.

If the disruption lasts a long time, it will be necessary to
produce food locally. Victory gardens should be laid out and prepared in
1999. (It is easier to bring in a truck load of maneur when the trucks
are operating.)

SCHEDULE

Below is a schedule to implement this plan.

Fall, 1998
Begin discussing the idea that urban dwellers should consider
moving to a more rural location.
Increase production of equipment that will probably be needed.
Every social unit from families to the United Nations should have
y2k preparedness conversations to decide how to move at least some people
to more sustainable locations. Planning units should ask questions such
as the following: If the economy takes a holiday, what parts of our
business need to be kept operating until the prior economic activity
resumes?
Community planning units should include political leaders, utility
managers, community activists skilled in arranging and facilitating
meetings, journalists, etc. In addition to making as much equipment as
possible year 2000 ready, communities should ask questions such as how
they will insure that everyone in the community has a warm place to go, if
they need it, and that everyone in the community has enough to eat.

Spring 1999
Identify locations to which people will move.
Begin preparing these locations.
Continue intensive work on fixing all susceptible equipment.

Summer 1999
Make modifications to buildings, for example install wood stoves
and/or propane tanks as a back up to natural gas. Purchase matresses, if
necessary.
Prepare gardens.
Stockpile food and other essentials.
Visitors should make friends in the community. Parents should
locate schools and playgrounds. Schools in rural areas may need to find
additional space in churches, homes, or stores. A census of residents
plus visitors would probably be helpful for planning.

Fall 1999
Complete preparations.
Buy clothing and other goods that may be hard to get in coming
months.
Begin moving people into position.

A PROBLEM FOR GOVERNMENT

Not everyone who might like to move to a rural area may have
relatives or friends they can move in with. One possibility is that
federal or state governments may decide to "nationalize" rural hotels and
motels as residences for these urban dwellers. These buildings would need
to be made year 2000 ready. Hence, the demand would need to be estimated
in the fall of 1998. Sites should be found in the spring of 1999 and
renovations made in the summer and fall of 1999. Ideally, people should
visit the sites to which they will be moving in the summer of 1999 to help
with preparations -- carpentry, garden preparation, etc. Such visits
would ease the anxiety of both urban dwellers and rural community
residents. If these visits occur, the people moving into town in the
winter would be acquaintences, not strangers.

"Nationalizing" rural property to provide refuges for urban
dwellers will probably be more popular in the cities than in the
countryside. This will be a challenge for political leaders, who may
prefer some other solution.

DIFFICULTIES AND ADVANTAGES

This plan will be difficult to implement, both psychologically and
politically. However, it has several advantages.

1. It provides an alternative to collapse (disappointment,
frustration, disappointment, frustration...) as a route to a lower level
of consumption of utility services.
2. It allows society to focus available utility services on the
population that is working to fix computer equipment, thereby minimizing
the period of disruption.
3. It allows the general population to say to programmers and
engineers, "We know you need more time. We shall get out of the way and
let you 'fix it right'. Work fast, but take the time you need. We shall
be all right until you are finished."
4. To those who fear chaos and civil disorder, it provides a
controllable route to a lower level of consumption and security in a
community where visitors know someone well and others are met the summer
before. The future becomes known rather than unknown. Even people with
no computer skills can make a positive contribution to modifying
buildings, planning school expansion, etc.
5. If there is no plan for coping with the period of disruption,
the people who leave the cities may be the technical people who know some
things will not work and who imagine a coming period of chaos. But these
are exactly the people we want to keep on the job. Their moving out would
prolong the period of disruption.
6. Such a plan allows public officials to say, "There is a way
to cope, even if there is a large amount of disruption. Some people will
go on holiday. We do not know for how long. Everyone will be affected
and everyone will have a role to play. Here is how we shall do it."
I leave the details for the planning professionals at all levels
and in all organizations. :-)