Y2K Okay?

By Teresa Rochester and Anne LaJeunesse

When Santa Monica revelers ring in the year 2000, City Manager Susan McCarthy will be at work. So will Police Chief James T. Butts, Jr., Fire Chief Ettore Bernardinelli, public safety officials and a host of other service providers.

Despite months - and even years - spent preparing for the arrival of the new millenium, hundreds of Santa Monica public and private sector employees will usher in the new year on the job in order to ensure Y2K rolls in without a hitch.

"We're ready to go. We've been working on it in excess of two years," said McCarthy of the city's Y2K preparedness. "I'm working. That's just my sense of responsibility. This year we might have to handle things that might not be foreseeable."

McCarthy said the city has had less of a challenge than other municipalities preparing for the so-called millenium bug because it has invested in new technology capable of handling the turning of the century. A year-and-a-half ago, the city compiled a list of approximately 500 computer systems that needed upgrading. Today, all critical systems -- such as traffic signals, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles - are ready to go.

As night falls, the basement of the Santa Monica Police Department headquarters will be transformed into an Emergency Operation Center where police and fire personnel will monitor the state of the city. Fire and Police Department officials said they will increase the number of personnel on hand.

All of the heads of the Fire Department -- the Chief, the Deputy Chief and two Battalion Chiefs, the Support Services Chief and Fire Marshall --, as well as an additional paramedic unit will be at the ready. But the Fire department will not otherwise increase its force.

"We're not considering this an emergency," said the department's Public Information Officer Roni Roseberg. "We will be activating it with an awareness of the fact there will be more revelry."

Lt. Gary F. Gallinot, spokesman for the Santa Monica Police Department, said that a "higher than usual" number of uniformed police officers would be deployed New Year's Eve throughout the city, especially in areas frequented by revelers, like the Third Street Promenade and Santa Monica Pier.

Through the statewide Emergency Management Information System, incidents across the state, country and the world will be monitored throughout the night.

"We will be in touch with what happens throughout the U.S., and indeed, the world," Gallinot said. "It will give us an opportunity to see what goes on in the East Coast three hours before midnight hits here on the West Coast."

Gallinot said that while no problems are anticipated, the department wants to be prepared to handle any emergency immediately.

Backup systems, including a communications system, are in place should any Y2K problem occur at the police department, Gallinot said.

Public officials are not the only ones who will greet the New Year while on the clock. Hospitals, phone companies, banks and Southern California Edison also will have an increased number of employees working through the night to handle potential glitches.

Although Saint John's Health Center and Santa Monica/UCLA Medical Center will increase the number of staff members in their emergency and Intensive Care Units, spokespersons at both hospitals said that Y2k did not influence their plans to increase personnel.

"We're not doing anything because of Y2K per se," said Lindi Funfton, Vice President of Human Resources at Saint John's Health Center. "We always have extra staff on hand in emergency and ICU over holiday weekends. We are Y2K compatible and ready to go."

Officials at Santa Monica/UCLA Medical Center said that every computer system and every piece of equipment has been tested for compliance.

"We will be staffing up," said Medical Center Spokesman Ted Braun. "We're also going to implement disaster mode and have a command center. It's strictly precautionary."

While GTE has shelled out close to $385 million and employed approximately 1,600 additional workers since 1995 to make the phone company Y2K compliant, they will bring in more than 200 employees to make sure phones continue to ring after midnight, according to Spokeswoman Julia Wilson.

"First of all, we are Y2K okay," Wilson said, adding that phone volume is particularly heavy in New Year's eve. "We expect all systems to work. We've got a lot of extra people working overtime."

GTE employees monitoring the company's network systems and responding to anything out of the ordinary on Friday night will be treated to special buffet dinners. Wilson said that spouses are also invited.

Officials at Wells Fargo Bank and Southern California Edison, which supplies electricity to Santa Monica and much of Southern California, said they have been ready for the end of the century since June 1999. But both companies have more employees than usual on hand Friday night.

"For us it's pretty much business as usual," said Wells Fargo Spokeswoman Kathy Shilkret, who added that ATM machines will be up and running, provided phone lines are as well. "We've made all of our Y2K precautions. Banking regulators had required banks to be largely compliant by June 30, 1999."

Shilkret said the bank will have a command center set up to monitor the bank's systems throughout the 21 states it serves, and employees will process transactions throughout Friday night.

Edison, which supplies electricity to over 4.3 million customers, has been ready for Y2K since June 28, 1999 and will have over 1,000 extra employees in place on New Year's Eve, Spokesman Steve Hanson said.

"We really focused our efforts on putting together a really comprehensive program," Hanson said. "Any outage, no matter what the cause, people will think they are Y2K related. We have a lot of people monitoring our systems as far as security is concerned."