STORY:
9-9-99 Posed No Problems

Day goes by without any reports of trouble

The date that could be a warm up for January 1, 2000 went by without a glitch being reported. In a nationwide drill for the US, utilities say computers and communications systems in every time zone ran without a problem.

Some experts on the computer Y2K had feared Thursday's was a potential system-stopper. They feared old computers could confuse the date of 9-9-99 with a "9999" stop-program command in the COBOL programming language, leading to unexpected computer shutdowns. Utilities kept extra computer experts and crews on duty at control rooms, power plants and substations as the date rolled over.

U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was at the Bonneville Power Administration in Vancouver, Washington where he supervised a portion of the nationwide drill. He declared the nation's electric power systems 99 percent ready for Jan. 1, 2000, but said the Energy Department would conduct additional 20 reviews of randomly selected electric utilities over the next two months.

In the financial world, a Federal Reserve Board spokesman told the Associated Press no glitches relative to the 9-9-99 date were detected, but the date did give banks a chance to test out event management procedures which will be in effect on New Years Eve.

DATE: 9/10/99

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