DODGING THE Y2K BULLET; L.A. OFFICIALS PUTTING PLANS IN MOTION TO ENSURE CITY'S CYBER-SURVIVAL IN 2000.

Byline: ERIC MOSES 

WE'VE all heard about the impending computer glitch that could wipe out electronic civilization as we know it. Some call it the Y2K problem; others refer to it as the millennium bug.

By any name, it has many people scared that the apocalypse is about 52 weeks away. The fear is that computers will identify the year incorrectly, interpreting the double zero at the end of what we know is 2000 instead as 1900.

There are Web sites dedicated to what could or could not go wrong, including the Federal Reserve Board's, a prayer site and Y2K humor page.

In any event, it is serious business. Very serious.

Businesses are spending millions fixing computers, and cities like Los Angeles are approaching 2000 as if it were an earthquake that will rock our world at the stroke of midnight.

``I do liken this to major-event planning - say you're getting ready for the Olympics, the Super Bowl or the (Democratic National Convention),'' said Ellis Stanley, the city of Los Angeles' director of emergency planning. ``This is one disaster we know is going to arrive on schedule.''

Stanley knows a thing or two about disaster planning, which scares me. He was the security director at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and is now preparing the emergency law enforcement response plans in case computers fail and Los Angeles goes dark on New Year's Day 2000.

At first, I was convinced the impending Y2K crisis was a marketing ploy by Bill Gates and the rest of the world's techies, but earlier this month I heard something so staggering that now I am convinced our computer-driven world will be turned upside down come Jan. 1, 2000.

A friend waiting for a delayed flight at Dulles International Airport called me to kill some time. While we were talking, I could hear an airline employee in the background blaming the delay on computer problems.

``Your flight has not been canceled,'' the employee told anxious passengers via the terminal's loudspeaker. ``The computer can't recognize the plane's been delayed.''

If that machine can't tell the difference between a delayed, canceled or departed plane, then how will others know to keep planes in flight if on-board computers or those in control towers interpret the double zero in 2000 as 1900? Airplanes didn't exist in 1900.

If there is a problem in an industry so reliant on computers, then what about those that affect our lives every day?

That's what the city of Los Angeles is spending more than $101 million to find out, said Frank Martinez, the head of the mayor's Year 2000 Compliance Project. There is the potential for failure at the beginning of the 2000s.

Many computers and electronic gadgets have something called an embedded chip controlling them. They may be in such pieces of equipment that create electricity, control wastewater plants, operate the 911 system, open and shut fire station garage doors and run the network of traffic lights.

The chips that city officials are after are the ones that operate at a specific time or register the date and year when they do their function.

``It's important to note that only about 4 percent of the chips have a problem,'' Martinez said. ``You just don't know exactly where they are.''

No matter how often they say it or how strident their conviction, I do not believe Martinez or any other city and county official when they assure me that we'll make it through the Y2K barrier unscathed. I remain unconvinced because every warranty is tempered with a disclaimer.

For instance, Jon Fullinwider, who is making sure the county's computer system will, among other things, continue to distribute welfare checks beyond Dec. 31, 1999, says in one breath: ``Planes aren't going to fall out of the skies. Elevators aren't going to crash to the floor.''

But in the next breath: ``I'm certainly not going to be on an airplane on Jan. 1, 2000.''

Fullinwider will not be flying anywhere when the millennium changes. He'll be in the county's bunkerlike emergency operations center, near Monterey Park.

The county, by Fullinwider's count, has 988 computer systems that run 96,000 programs. Of those programs, he said, 36,000 need to be remediated in the next year or they will not work beyond 1999.

But what worries me, because it worries Fullinwider and Martinez, is that no matter how well the county and city do their jobs, outside forces could still send the system into a spiral.

``I suppose (the) nightmare for me,'' Fullinwider said, ``is trying to manage a collateral event, something I don't control. If we had a significant power outage which impacted my computer system, even if my systems were remediated, my computers are still down.''

W.C. Byrd, the communications director for the city's Department of Water and Power Year 2000 Project, said the agency, which supplies electricity and drinking water to Los Angeles residents and businesses, should have all the kinks worked out by the end of June.

``We do have a contingency plan just in case we miss something, which is humanly possible, or just in case there is some other failure in a system out of our control,'' Byrd said.

The DWP is drafting its contingency plans based on a pair of events that brought Los Angeles and Southern California to its knees: the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and the August 1996 power outage in several Western states that cut electricity to half a million DWP customers for up to two hours.

Feeling any more comfortable?

Try this on for size. If the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which admits it got a late start preparing for 2000, doesn't get its act together, crewmen may not know where its trains - whether subway or above-ground - will be in 2000.

Transmitters along the tracks alert operators in the MTA's automated control center to a train's location and speed, and are used to determine such crucial operations as when to switch a car from one track to another to avoid a collision and if gates lower as trains approach crossings, said Don Stiner, the MTA's Y2K project manager.

Stiner's engineers are determining if the year 2000 will cause a problem or not.

``We consider that a safety issue,'' he said. I agree.

Stiner said the system can operate without the electronic sensors, but it means the MTA would post humans along the tracks to relay the data.

Another possible MTA-associated snafu waits in the computers that log bus maintenance. Those computers help mechanics determine when a bus is due for preventive repairs, like oil changes or new tires, based on mileage driven and the age of the bus, Stiner said.

If the computer doesn't recognize the date change, Stiner said, ``it may say (a particular) bus has been operating for 100 years. Take it out of service.''

That, I'm sure, would make the Bus Riders Union very happy.

So what do we do? Some of the more skeptical of us have decided to hunt for caves to hide in during the critical period after the new year. Others are withdrawing their savings from banks. (By the way, the U.S. Treasury is going to add $50 billion of currency into circulation just in case there is a run on cash machines for the new millennium.) And others are stocking up on items, such as toilet paper and gasoline, that can be used for barter.

More than a year from Y2K Day, the DWP's Byrd has already been deluged by the panic-stricken. Some people tell him they are going to take their money out of the bank and buy six months' worth of food and water. Some say they are selling their homes.

``If that is going to help them keep their sanity,'' Byrd said, ``I can't tell them not to do that. I don't want to tell people to do something that won't make them not sleep at night.''

The city of Los Angeles recommends augmenting your earthquake survival kit with bank records, electric bills and deeds to your home, just in case the information is lost.

This is key because with New Year's Day 2000 falling on a Saturday, it may be a few days before anyone realizes anything is wrong.

My needs that weekend will be simple. Will they play the Rose Bowl? Will IBM, ironically the game's new sponsor, make them?

Though I have my doubts about how easily we'll get through the big ``rollover'' - as the Federal Reserve Board calls it - I am going to be prepared for the worst.

At the stroke of midnight I will be logged on to a Web site titled Y2K PrayerShield, which is billed as an ``intercessory network for Y2K efforts ushering in the new millennium.''

Because with computers, you never know when a little prayer will help.