Until recently, I worked for a company that had an affiliate in Albuquerque.
I was told that some businesses in Albuquerque had been warned by the
electric utility that they could expect outages at the first of the year.
This is second or third-hand information, so I can not attest to its source.
The story as I hear it is that power companies in the region are planning to
disconnect from the power-sharing grid for a while to avoid problems caused
by the possible lack of preparedness at other  utilities on the grid.  Since
the Albuquerque area is often a net consumer of electric power, they may
need to cut off power to some non-essential sites until things stabilize and
they get re-connected.  The warnings were not reported to be based on any
lack of compliance on the part of the local utility.

Hopefully, Mr. Brown is still monitoring the list and can comment on the
accuracy of these remarks.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Phillips [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, December 10, 1999 8:02 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: OT? : Y2K


Recently Don Brown wrote:

>To Y2k-Watchers on the Web,
>
>A recent article in the Albuquerque Journal North on Public Service
>Company of New Mexico's Y2K preparedness missed the mark on accuracy
>and unfortunately created questions in some folks' minds on PNM's
>commitment to being ready for Y2K.
>
>We have requested that the paper's editors correct or clarify the
>misinformation they printed last week.  In the meantime, here are the
>facts:

Exactly what information are you trying to correct?

The part about the generator being installed or the part about PNM?

Is the following true?  That is, is this quote correct?

>"We have to get this installed by the end of the month," said waste water
>director Qustandi Kassisieh. "We're working under an emergency now."

Obviously, this person is a lot closer than I am, and he seems to be worried
about something.  Something that may happen at the end of the month.

Or is this the misinformation you are trying to correct?

>Officials with the Public Service Company of New Mexico have said they
>expect a "high probability" that local electrical service will be cut off
for a few >hours on New Year's Day because of Y2K problems. They have not
ruled >out the chance of longer outages.

Did your company make this statement (or one like it) or not?  Correcting
misinformation by giving out platitudes such as:

>PNM is ready for the Y2k rollover.

>...all of our mission critical systems ready for the rollover.

and the like do not do much to dissuade the pessismists among us.  I note
that nowhere in your post do you claim that your power generating equipment,
distribution systems, or business systems are Y2K-compliant.  Nor do you
cite any third-party evaluations to confirm or deny your statements.

Jim Phillips

(Who's also ready for the Y2K rollover :-)