Year 2000 Preparations Consuming the Valley

Whether bracing for a crippling computer meltdown or planning to usher out the century with a fittingly epic shindig, San Fernando Valley-area government agencies, hospitals, businesses and party planners are consumed in preparations six months before the year 2000.

Although many experts now believe the much-hyped Y2K computer glitch will cause little commotion locally on or about Jan. 1, 2000, Los Angeles police and fire officials are taking nothing for granted, hammering out emergency plans for all manner of potential calamities in the Valley.

Likewise, officials are making sure Van Nuys Airport and critical government facilities are ready for any possible problems stemming from the computer bug, which is caused by the use of two digits instead of four to represent years in some computer programs. In doing so, they hope to avoid the type of accident that occurred earlier this month during Y2K testing at the Donald C. Tillman sanitation plant in Van Nuys.

That mishap, blamed on a computer malfunction during a test of the plant’s backup power system, caused more than 3 million gallons of raw sewage to spill into the Sepulveda Dam Recreation Area.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” said Bob Canfield, the city’s emergency preparedness coordinator. “None of us knows what is going to happen in the year 2000. It may come and go with a whimper. But the way we began looking at this more than a year and a half ago was, this is a great opportunity to inform people about emergency planning, and to revisit all our preparations.”

Valley-area hospitals are also laboring to check all their medical equipment for Y2K compliance and ensure they have emergency plans in place.

“You have to prepare for the unknown,” said Adnan Dhermajwala, who since last year has led the push to get Van Nuys’ Valley Presbyterian Hospital in shape.

Businesses have spent millions of dollars on Y2K preparations, and most say they’ll be ready.

Never ones to be left out of a party, caterers and hoteliers are also getting into the act, gearing up for special end-of-the-century celebrations.

Although many say their preparations are nothing out of the ordinary this year, some are planning to put on glitzier affairs Dec. 31. The Valley’s biggest party may well be the one organized by the city, which is scheduled to entertain 100,000 people in Van Nuys on New Year’s Eve.

“Ours is going to be a little flashier and the menu will be better,” said Joseph Nagy, coordinator of a 300-person New Year’s Eve bash at the Radisson Hotel in Sherman Oaks. “Also, it seems like we’re getting booked a little earlier this year.”

EMERGENCY SERVICES / Police

It is not just the possible outbreak of Y2K problems, but all the talk of giant parties that has the Los Angeles Police Department concerned. As numerous sticklers have pointed out, the millennium will not officially arrive until 2001, but that’s not going to stop the revelry Dec. 31.

So for those in the Valley planning to throw a big bash--say 500 guests, give or take a few hundred--the LAPD may not be on your invite list, but the police plan to be in touch with you.

“We’ve done a survey of every police area in the city where there will be more than 500 people celebrating in one place,” said Lt. Charles Roper, who is in charge of the department’s Emergency Operations Section. “Big celebrations will be the most trying issues.”

The LAPD’s contingency plans to review possible Y2K problems began more than a year ago, and are for the most part in place. For instance, Roper said, should traditional telephone service fail, police officers would be able to switch to two-way radio systems and satellite phones. The LAPD’s operations center, the computerized “manager” of the LAPD’s resources, cleared a pre-Y2K test May 25, Roper added.

A good technical test of the department’s Y2K preparedness will occur Sept. 8, he said. This is the evening before the so-called quadruple 9 problem when computers will need to process the date of 9/9/99.

On that day the LAPD will be on “maximum deployment,” when all personnel--except those who are sick, injured or on vacation--will be on call, Roper said. On Dec. 31, the LAPD will again switch into maximum deployment.

“Anywhere in the city that night, you can expect to see an awful lot of police,” Roper said.

Likewise, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department has fallback plans, including two-way radios, secondary 911 routing if a sheriff’s station loses communication, and printouts of data instead of online computer databases. Sheriff’s officials also expect to have extra forces on the streets at year’s end.

Additional California Highway Patrol units will be cruising freeways for days before and after New Year’s.

From Dec. 26 to Jan. 5, all CHP personnel will work 12-hour shifts instead of eight, and riding two to a car instead of one, said Sgt. Ernie Sanchez, a CHP spokesman.

Fire

The Los Angeles Fire Department’s telephone and radio systems have already been checked, and will soon be able to resort to a free-standing, backup communications system housed in the Santa Monica Mountains--the only system of its kind operated by a fire agency in Southern California, spokesman Brian Humphrey said.

About 931 firefighters will be on duty Jan. 1, Humphrey said, and if necessary the prior shift can remain on duty for a total staffing of 1,800.

A citywide cadre of Fire Department-trained community volunteers can also be tapped: 458 teams for a total of 21,333 people.

The county Fire Department, which serves most areas surrounding the city, is still making staffing decisions, but Battalion Chief Jim Crawford assured the public that additional firefighters will be working. The department’s link in the state 911 system was being upgraded last week, he added.

OTHER SERVICES

Los Angeles’ Information Technology Department has been monitoring the city’s 147 major enterprise systems--from payroll to dispatch--for Y2K readiness. They expect 97% will be cleared for readiness by the end of the month, with the rest coming by September.

City officials have also resorted to clever means to outfox the Y2K bug, tricking a major citywide computer network into thinking it was still 1972 to avoid glitches.

Los Angeles bureaucrats learned Y2K was no trifling matter two years ago when the computer system tracking dog licenses began to have problems. Because of a computer date error, owners whose licenses were good until 2000 mistakenly received notices saying they had not registered their pet since 1900.

In addition to their own preparations, and a massive public awareness project planned for later this year, city officials are launching the Millennium Management Leadership Team, an initiative with county officials and the private sector to ensure that businesses and residents throughout the county do not suffer major disruptions due to Y2K.

James Brainerd, chief information officer for the Department of Water and Power, said utility service should not face any major disruptions. “Jan. 1, 2000, will be like any other New Year’s Day,” he assured city administrators.

Whatever the case, city officials are preparing for the possibility that some part of the massive power grid serving the western United States will be affected by the Y2K bug, forcing them to rely on local power sources, perhaps even backup generators, to power key facilities. One local power facility being counted on for backup duty is in Sun Valley.

Likewise, city departments that depend on electricity are putting together backup plans to deal with the possibility the electrical juice may run dry.

The city’s Department of Airports, for instance, has backup generators available in case the Y2K problem--or any other problem, for that matter--affects the airfield lights at Van Nuys Airport.

Control towers are overseen by the Federal Aviation Administration, which has said all its facilities nationwide will be Y2K compliant by the end of the month.

“Regardless of the true reason, anything that happens between Dec. 15 and Jan 15 . . . certain people are going to blame it on Y2K,” said Renee Gonzalez-Fong, Y2K project manager for the airports department. “So we know we’d better be ready.”

At Burbank Airport, technicians conducted an inventory of all equipment that contained the type of embedded computer chips prone to the Y2K bug--from cash registers and air-conditioning systems to automatic toilets.

Officials then came up with plans to deal with problems occurring outside the airport’s control, such as loss of electrical power. Burbank Airport has generators for emergency operations, and the FAA has a backup generator of its own to power radar controls at the airport.

“We’re comfortably ahead of schedule on Y2K,” airport spokesman Sean McCarthy said. “The real question for us, as with many others, is whether our power source will be affected. But we are prepared for that.”

HOSPITALS

Dhermajwala has been leading efforts to get the 340-bed Valley Presbyterian Hospital into Y2K shape since April 1998. In some cases, Dhermajwala said, he has hand-checked highly critical equipment, such as anesthesia machines, ventilators and defibrillators, to make sure they function without a hitch when the date rolls forward. He even hooked himself to a patient monitor during this process.

Mostly, the equipment passed without incident, though Dhermajwala said there was at least one case in which a defibrillator incorrectly processed the date but continued to function. Even so, the hospital put it out of service.

“The mentality around here is that if you can survive the Northridge earthquake, Y2K shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Dhermajwala said.

At Northridge Hospital Medical Center, Y2K compliance officer Ray Moss is engaged in similar drills. In one instance, he identified a defibrillator that stopped functioning during a test. But this was a piece of equipment the manufacturer had identified as non-Y2K compliant a year earlier and pulled from the market. It was replaced.

Dan Robins, chief information officer for the Los Angeles service area of Providence Health Systems, parent of Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank and Providence Holy Cross in Mission Hills, has overseen testing of more than 5,000 pieces of biomedical equipment since spring 1997.

“We inventoried everything and evaluated whether or not it was managed by an electronic chip,” Robins said. “We found that some were not compliant, and we either replaced or repaired them.”

BUSINESS

A Walt Disney Co. task force has been addressing the Y2K bug in a six-phase campaign led by Chief Information Officer Sharon Garrett. In its annual report, Burbank-based Disney devoted several paragraphs to speculating on what could go wrong--everything from theme park rides conking out to potential interruption of movie production or distribution.

The company isn’t leaving anything to chance. As of September, Disney said 400 corporate staff members were devoting at least half their time to the Y2K problem, plus 400 free-lance experts. Disney said then it had incurred $136 million in costs on the project.

On a smaller scale, Tech-Ni-Comm Inc., a Valencia-based company that operates a commercial Web site called FiveStarAdvantage.com, has spent $300,000 in recent months on 60 new computers and new software to handle e-commerce traffic.

President Jeffrey Gleckman said he’s convinced if he had not made these changes, his site would have ceased to function after Jan. 1, essentially putting him out of business.

“The bottom line is I had to do it. It was absolutely necessary,” Gleckman said. “With e-commerce you have to be ahead of the game.”

Woodland Hills-based 20th Century Insurance Co. has invested $9 million since late 1996 in a laborious effort to identify, evaluate and test its internal computer systems, while making sure numerous third-party vendors also are taking steps to prevent interruptions.

Most of those efforts are finished, but in mid-July it will undergo one of its final tests--a check to determine whether its phone systems will keep operating when the calendar switches to 2000.

“We think we’re in pretty good shape with the systems that are ours,” Chief Information Officer Mike Farrell said.

The company faces another challenge unique to the turn of the century--its name, which on Jan. 1, 2000, will be rooted in the century past.

So it will rename itself upon getting approval from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and each state where the company does business. The holding company 20th Century Industries will become 21st Century Insurance Group, and 20th Century Insurance Co. will become 21st Century Insurance Co.

PARTIES

Many caterers said interest in this New Year’s Eve appears no different from any other, despite the year 2000 hype.

Traditionally, people don’t book a caterer for New Year’s Eve parties until fall, said Bill Meade, owner of Joe’s Catering in Canoga Park, and he said that form is holding.

“Unless it’s a lavish ball, it’s too early for the smaller types of parties, even if it is 2000,” Meade said. “The phone will start ringing off the hook around September.”

Although demand may not be up, Meade and other caterers say the extra hype this year may yet result in extra profits.

“Because it’s the whole 2000 thing, I get to charge more money,” he said with a laugh.

At Van Nuys Airport, the city of Los Angeles is planning a free, daylong event for 100,000. But don’t expect to drink bubbly on the city tab.

“It’s alcohol-free and totally for families,” city spokeswoman Kathryn Rice said.

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This story was reported by Times staff writers Miguel Bustillo, Annette Kondo, Irene Garcia, Patrick McGreevy ans special correspondent Jennifer Pendleton, and was written by Bustillo.