ARE YOU OK WITH Y2K? SOME PLAN ...BUT OTHERS PROFIT FROM 01/01/00.

Byline: Reed Johnson Staff Writer

We're all going to DIE!

Just kidding. Really - that was just a bad joke. Ha-ha?

Seriously, folks, there's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT! PLEASE GO BACK TO YOUR HOMES! EVERYTHING IS COMPLETELY UNDER CONTROL!

Well ... that's probably a bit of a whopper, too.

Fact is, nobody really knows what's going to happen at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1999, when the high-tech crackup nicknamed Y2K (a k a ``the millennium bug'') conceivably could produce a few minor glitches.

Glitches like, oh, billions of dollars disappearing from bank accounts, jumbo jetliners plunging out of the sky and early warning systems mistaking the Goodyear blimp for incoming Chinese warheads.

And heaven knows what might happen with the computerized sound system at the Eagles' New Year's Eve concert at the Staples Center. Don Henley might come out sounding like Baby Spice.

Or, conversely, will Y2K turn out to be another '90s-style, flash-in-the-pan disaster, a fleeting fin de siecle diversion for a culture that thrives on hyperbole and seems obsessed with apocalyptic scenarios?

``To be honest with you, I don't really know what to make of (Y2K), because you get the hype, and then you get the people who say, `Don't worry about it,' '' says Robert Goodman, CEO and owner of Box Brothers, a Woodland Hills-based shipping and packaging company that's currently offering ``Y2K Storage Boxes'' for sale.

Um, Y2K ``storage boxes''?

``To be honest with you, it's just a regular storage box,'' Goodman confides, ``just for people to be prepared and have the right boxes.''

To be honest with you, lots of people are feeling boxed-in about Y2K, including the U.S. government.

`Some disruptions will occur'

While Internet prophets have been chattering darkly about Wall Street meltdowns and martial law, Washington officials have been treading a thin line between raising public awareness and touching off mass hysteria.

The Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 recently concluded that ``it has no data to suggest that the United States will experience nationwide social or economic collapse.'' But it also warned that ``some disruptions will occur'' and ``the international situation may be even more tumultuous.''

Underscoring the federal government's Y2K's concerns, on July 20 President Clinton signed into law a controversial bill that will limit businesses' financial liability for damages resulting from Y2K-related computer mishaps.

Catastrophically speaking, Y2K may be the closest we've ever come to a sure thing. Unlike most previous doomsday portents, Y2K warnings are grounded in cold science rather than cryptic oracles.

Consequently, Y2K induces a double-edged anxiety: We're pretty sure there's going to be trouble, but we can't know with certainty what form it will take.

That opens our imaginations to the most sinister, as well as the most mundane possibilities. As Stephen O'Leary, an associate professor of communications at the University of Southern California, recently told the Boston Globe, Y2K is the ``first apocalyptic prediction in history (in which we know) that something will happen on that date. It becomes the perfect blank slate on which to project our millennial fears.''

Ready for anything

Indeed, Y2K has become a magnet for all manner of futuristic hunches, running the gamut from the fatalistic to the guardedly hopeful.

``We feel, if nothing else, (Y2K) is a great opportunity for people to think about how interdependent we are with other people and how many things we take for granted,'' says Christopher Nyerges, 44, whose Eagle Rock-based School of Self-Reliance teaches skills such as wild food foraging and recycling.

The school's Web site - www.self-reliance.net - currently carries a number of recommendations on Y2K preparedness, including a list of ``OBVIOUS NEEDS: water, food, first-aid, weapons, toilet, bath, fire, light, communication/information devices, weather-protection (and) money.''

``It's essentially the (same) information we tell people about how to prepare for an earthquake,'' Nyerges says.

Nyerges isn't alone in seeing Y2K as a potential blessing in disguise, an impetus for reconnecting with fellow beings, simpler times or higher moral values.

George and Jill, an L.A. couple who spoke on condition that their real names not be used for this story, have been busily stockpiling Y2K provisions for several months. The couple, who are Mormons, say that the national leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urges perpetual preparedness as a way of life.

``After the Northridge Earthquake, how many people swore they'd keep their shoes by their bed? And now how many people do?'' Jill says.

When a reporter visited the couple recently at their home in a remote corner of the San Fernando Valley, George gave a walk-in tour of their garage, packed floor-to-ceiling with emergency essentials.

These include 50 boxes of instant oatmeal, a gallon of shampoo, 500 pounds of uncooked pasta stored in giant Rubbermaid containers, stacks of canned soup and tuna, Emergency Survival Bars, ketchup in cans the size of paint buckets, Q-Tips, aspirin, cough drops, vitamins, batteries, adhesive tape, candles, dental floss and Preparation H.

``Gotta have this,'' George says, grinning.

He also has purchased a 5,000-kilowatt generator and several 55-gallon water drums, enough to supply six people for nearly two months.

George, 41, a friendly, soft-spoken man who designs theme park attractions and 3-D computer models for a living, admits that ``some of my friends have chuckled at me,'' and he concedes that his non-Mormon kinfolk give him ``the cold shoulder'' whenever he tries to discuss Y2K.

Nonetheless, he says, he's preparing to help his relatives and neighbors however he can, in accordance with the tenets of his faith. He believes Y2K may help restore ``family values'' by bringing loved ones and communities closer together to confront the crisis.

``Buy your insurance policy. Be prepared. Love and help one another and bring back the community and the core of America and what makes this phenomenal country as good as it is.''

Millennium movie

Elsewhere on the Y2K spectrum is Geoffrey de Valois, a Hollywood filmmaker who's planning to start production this fall on a low-budget independent feature, ``AMERIKKA: Year 2000.''

Set in Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, ``AMERIKKA: Year 2000'' reflects de Valois' belief that the coming future shock will more likely be about clashing cultures than crashing hard drives.

In the movie, ``a romantic doomsday thriller,'' a high-tech militia attempts to exploit the Y2K crisis in order to start a race war. But they're thwarted by two sexy, intrepid female reporters working for a fictional online magazine. Cuba Gooding Jr.'s sister, April Gooding, plays the role of a newscaster, de Valois says.

``There's a massive demographic change happening in this country, especially in California and Texas, and I think that triggers a lot of fears in people,'' says de Valois, 47. ``There's anxiety anytime a group feels it's being displaced.''

Between the Net's dire forecasts and the often less-than-reassuring pronouncements of civic leaders, the popular image of Y2K has become polarized between hard-core survivalists and blase yuppies. In reality, a large part of the citizenry falls into neither of these stereotypical camps and is apparently pursuing a course of moderate preventative action.

According to a recent Associated Press poll, 31 percent of Americans are stocking up on food, water and other supplies. At least one-quarter of those polled plan to take extra money out of the bank before the new year.

And while a majority of Americans expect only minor glitches come Jan. 1, many are observing the old Boy Scout adage: Be prepared.

``Prepare for Y2K Here'' reads the large red and white banner outside RECON-1, a survival store on Ventura Boulevard in Tarzana.

Despite the imposing sign, brothers Peter and Gary Kalaydjian, who've owned RECON-1 for 14 years, preach a low-key precautionary gospel aimed at middle-income consumers.

``These people that are laughing at you now, saying that you're out of your mind, are going to be the first ones knocking on your door to get your supplies,'' says Peter Kalaydjian.

For about $500, the brothers estimate, a family of four can outfit itself with a cache of food, water, flashlights, batteries, a first-aid kit and other items, without having to break the bank.

In Southern California, where the next firestorm, temblor or mudslide is always just around the corner, Peter Kalaydjian says there's no excuse for not being disaster-ready.

``It's very, very surprising to still see that there are people out there who believe they're above and beyond all this, and they don't think anything's going to happen to them,'' he says. ``What's it going to hurt to prepare?''

Talking with Kalaydjian, Y2K preparedness sounds so common-sensical and can-do, so ruggedly enterprising, so ... American. Could it be that the main thing we have to fear about Y2K is fear itself?

In ``The Imagination of Disaster,'' her classic essay on technology and its discontents, Susan Sontag argued that modern life, overshadowed by the threat of nuclear annihilation, has created a tendency toward ``moral simplification,'' which allows us to displace our biggest anxieties onto more manageable targets.

``Ours is indeed an age of extremity,'' Sontag wrote, ``for we live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror.''

Kris Smith didn't need Susan Sontag to tell her that an ounce of prevention is sometimes worth a pound of prophesy.

A waitress at the International House of Pancakes in Palmdale, Smith has for years kept emergency earthquake backpacks for herself and her two sons, filled with clothes, can openers, food, water, flashlights and solar blankets. She also relies on a strange sixth sense to tip her off about danger.

In the early '90s, when she lived in Sylmar, Smith used to get eerie feelings about the coming Northridge Earthquake.

``I would be lying in bed and I would get a wave through my stomach,'' she says. ``It's called a premonition. I'm kind of spiritual. I believe my grandma was like that, and my mother was like that.''

Smith's mother, a nurse, had felt a psychic glimmer on the morning of the 1971 Sylmar quake and called in sick. The hospital where she worked was virtually destroyed when the magnitude-6.7 temblor struck.

``Back then, they said it was earthquake-proof, just like the Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable,'' Smith says.

So far, Smith hasn't gotten any bad Y2K vibes.

``I think there's nothing to worry about,'' she says, gathering up a stack of dirty dishes.

But she's not giving up her backpack.

What Y2K safety steps to take

Due to the uncertainty surrounding Y2K, the American Red Cross has developed a checklist of recommended precautionary steps. Many are applicable to planning for other types of emergencies such as earthquakes.

1) Check with manufacturers of any essential computer-controlled electronic equipment in your home to see if that equipment may be affected. This includes fire and security alarm systems, programmable thermostats, appliances, consumer electronics, garage door openers, electronic locks, and any other electronic equipment in which an ``embedded chip'' may control its operation.

2) Stock enough supplies to last each member of your family for at least one week. These should include water (one gallon per day per person), nonperishable foods and an ample supply of prescription and nonprescription medications that you regularly use.

3) Have some extra cash or traveler's checks on hand in case electronic transactions involving ATM cards, credit cards and the like cannot be processed. Withdraw money from your bank in small amounts well in advance of 12/31/99, and store in a safe place.

4) Keep your automobile gas tank above half full.

5) If the power fails, plan to use alternative cooking devices in accordance with manufacturer's instructions. Don't use open flames or charcoal grills indoors.

6) Have extra blankets, coats, hats and gloves to keep warm. Do not plan to use gas-fueled appliances, such as an oven, as an alternative heating source. Ditto for wood-burning or liquid-fueled heating devices that are not designed to be used in a residential structure. Camp stoves and heaters should only be used out of doors in a well-ventilated area.

7) Have plenty of flashlights and extra batteries on hand. Don't use candles for emergency lighting.

8) Examine your smoke alarms now. If you have smoke alarms that are hard-wired into your home's electrical system (most newer ones are), check to see if they have battery back-ups.

9) Be prepared to relocate to a shelter for warmth and protection during a prolonged power outage or if for any other reason local officials request or require that you leave your home. Listen to a battery-operated radio or television for information about where shelters will be available.

10) If you plan to use a portable generator, connect whatever you want to power directly to the generator; do not connect the generator to your home's electrical system.

Source: American Red Cross

CAPTION(S):

3 photos, box

Photo: (1) Independent filmmaker Geoffrey de Valois is planning to shoot an apocalyptic movie called ``AMERIKKA: Year 2000,'' with a cast including Jennisen Svendsen.

(2) no caption (computer with survival supplies)

Photo illustration by David Sprague. Items courtesy of RECON-1 in Tarzana

(3 -- color -- cover) RU Y2K e?

David Sprague/Staff Photographer

Box: What Y2K safety steps to take (see text)