U.S. military commanders at home and abroad say all is calm as far as
Y2K-related glitches are concerned.
"All is quiet, can't do better than that," said Capt. Tim Taylor, a
spokesman for millions of U.S. soldiers stationed in the U.S. and
overseas.
Rear Adm. Bob Willard, head of the Y2K task force for the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, reported no U.S. or host-nation military computer bugs
worldwide - from Australia to the U.S. territory of Guam. One
computer-related glitch - a temporary shut down of a defense department
website - was attributed to human error.
However, the Pentagon is continuing to monitor defense computers and
weapons systems for any sign of hacking or other cyberterrorism,
including the introduction of computer viruses.
Air traffic control also worked smoothly on the island of Guam, the
Federal Aviation Administration reported in a first test of the nation's
systems.
"Planes have landed," said Mortimer Downey, deputy secretary at the
Department of Transportation, in a simple statement to the press.
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, immediately before leaving for a
Washington to San Francisco flight billed as a confidence-boosting
measure, said neither she nor her staff had seen any "Y2K problems at
this point" while monitoring some 3,000 planes.
However, the Clinton administration's top Y2K point man, John Koskinen,
said it was "far too early to declare victory."
"We have a lot of systems and a lot of countries to go through yet
before we'll see what the actual impact has been of the transition," he
said.
In other developments, official concerns about terrorism were moot
during the day, although authorities did blame sabotage, or "malicious
mischief," for the toppling of an electricity tower in Oregon Thursday
evening. A computer quickly re-routed power and no Pacific Northwest
customers lost electricity.
Also, phone carriers are reporting heavy phone calling traffic but no
large Y2K-related failures. Some companies noted small problems with
internal business systems that may not have been made Y2K-safe, although
they didn't cause customer disruptions.
"It's a very clean, quiet day. I'm looking forward to a very peaceful
New Year's Eve," said Rick Harder, vice president in charge of Y2K
readiness for Atlanta-based BellSouth.
James Lee Witt, director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency,
said he found no evidence of rumored food hoarding in Missouri and
Indiana or shortages of bottled water in Detroit. He said food sales
were markedly higher than normal, but that was not unusual considering
the expectation of a long weekend of holiday parties.
At home, extra supplies of cash stocked by banks in anticipation of runs
seemed likely to go untapped and grocers, pharmacies and gasoline
stations had yet to report extraordinary sales.