From Wild to Mild

The Third Millennium swept across America on a wave of public celebration but sputtered in rain-soaked Southern California, where outdoor celebrations were so poorly attended early in the evening that Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan quipped that his citizens were “a bunch of sissies.”

But the long-awaited watershed on the Christian calendar was most notable for its nonevents--the much-feared computer shutdowns and terrorist attacks that failed to materialize as the clock passed midnight on the Pacific Coast.

Disneyland’s central plaza was mobbed, as people fought for a prime view of the fireworks show. Elbows were flying and tempers flaring, making the Happiest Place on Earth look like a packed New York subway station.

Crowds were thinner than officials had projected. Still, despite a persistent drizzle overhead, lavish parties dotted Orange County’s affluent suburbs, accompanied by intimate block parties in older neighborhoods and street celebrations from Fullerton to Orange to the San Clemente Pier.

There was a little girl who wanted to be on her trampoline, in midair, at the stroke of midnight. There were roving bands at theme parks, camels in parking lots at one party and fireworks across the sky. But more than anything else, officials struck a familiar refrain: heavy police presence and little action.

“We have more cops than people on the streets,” Seal Beach Police Sgt. Bob Mullins said.

In Orange, St. Joseph Hospital welcomed the county’s first baby--a girl--at 12:07 a.m. Anayeli Dector, weighing in at 7 lbs., 15 oz., was born to Elena and Javier Dector.

Downpours early Friday kept some revelers away from Disneyland. But as the new year approached, 50,000 people were grooving to swing bands and steel drums--a good showing on a normal day but far from the park’s initial estimates of 80,000. By comparison, about 48,000 people flocked to the park on Dec. 23.

At the stroke of midnight, as Mickey Mouse stood atop Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, a red rocket shot to the top of the Matterhorn, touching off an explosion that read: “2000.” Fireworks erupted over a sea of glowing wands given to revelers.

For every American who celebrated publicly, there were many more who were home as the clock slipped past midnight. The millions who chose more subdued celebration, or ignored the milestone, seemed abundant confirmation of what the public had been saying for weeks: It had grown tired and apprehensive over the relentless millennial buildup.

But others were determined to recognize the passing of an age of great achievement and adversity and to greet a new era that seems to hold boundless challenges and possibilities.

New York City rocked with the cheers and dancing of 1.5 million people, who stretched from Times Square down 16 city blocks. Some 400,000 revelers so packed Miami Beach that police closed Ocean Drive to all traffic. And tens of thousands of people filled the Mall from the Lincoln Memorial past the Washington monument in the nation’s capital.

President Clinton, presiding over the capital’s millennial gala on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, hailed the new century as an opportunity for continued growth as a nation as well as a validation of America’s remarkable past.

“We Americans do not fear change; we welcome it, we embrace it, we create it,” Clinton said shortly before midnight Eastern time. “Yet on this night, I am struck not only by what has changed but by what endures: our freedom, our faith, our ceaseless pilgrimage toward the ideas of our founders.”

At the federal government’s Y2K command center, officials said computers appeared to be working normally, rolling over to the year 2000. State officials said they were so confident of computer systems that they had little to report at an evening briefing.

“I want to pinch myself,” Gov. Gray Davis said. “It’s almost too good to be true.”

While major Web sites, such as Amazon.com and Yahoo, survived handily, some sites did crash at least temporarily.

Among them were some of the more prominent Y2K Web sites, including https://www.yardeni.com and https://www.iy2kcc.org, the International Y2K Cooperation Center.

Among the few significant late-night problems were a fireworks-sparked brush fire that erupted late Friday near expensive homes in La Jolla, and a brief glitch at one Midwest power company that for a short time jumped clocks ahead 35 days. It was quickly fixed.

In Santa Rosa, two men were arrested on concealed-weapons charges after police caught them with an AK-47 assault rifle, a semiautomatic pistol and ammunition in a parking garage overlooking the site of this city’s New Year’s Eve celebration.

But at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Plant, technicians munched peanuts and watched New Year’s Eve tick across time zones--and stifled yawns. “We’re expecting a very boring evening,” said Paul Hawkins, superintendent of telecommunications. “It was a great sunset.”

“We’re watching paint dry tonight,” said Bill Lawrence, manager of operations and technology.

Well before midnight, John Wayne Airport was a virtual ghost town, with only a line of sheriff’s vehicles and security cars lining the curb. Fourteen flights, 10 of them arrivals, were canceled New Year’s Eve.

The airport monitors flashed in red letters, with the last flight out just after 8 p.m. and the last flight in landing before 9 p.m.

Airport spokeswoman Nghia Nguyen said it had been business as usual during the day, but by nightfall, the airport quickly got quiet.

“Starting in the early evening it was quite slow,” she said.

Alaska Airlines spokesman Lou Cancelmi said the six cancellations his airline had at John Wayne Airport were part of a larger trend that saw 18% of the airline’s New Year’s Eve flights systemwide scrubbed due to lack of demand.

“It’s all due to light loads. I just came from the Seattle airport and it’s like a tomb there,” Cancelmi said. “There just is nobody flying. The few flights that there are have very few people on them.”

The crowd at Knott’s Berry Farm’s Praise 2000, a celebration tailored for families and featuring top Christian music acts, also was lighter than expected.

“People want to stay home tonight,” said Dana Hammontree, spokeswoman for the Buena Park amusement park. “It seems like this New Year’s, more than ever, people want to be with their families.”

As midnight approached, however, revelers were in full swing, and many were making their New Year’s wishes.

“I want my band, Blush, to be famous. Yeah!” said Jennifer Lerma, a 16-year-old sophomore at Upland High School and a drummer in the all-girl punk group.

For months, Marybell and Sergio Avila--part of a well-known family of restaurateurs in Orange County--had faced the kind of decisions that come around only once a millennium. Would it be rhinestones and tuxedos--high-society shindigs and charity balls? Or would be it be something low-key--and, presumably, more intimate?

Eventually, they decided to throw the party of the century themselves, right at their Newport Beach home, dedicated to their three young daughters.

By nightfall, the house was decorated in black and gold, the Moet White Star champagne was chilling and helium-filled balloons dangled from the ceiling.

“It took us awhile to decide what to do, but this night is such a big deal,” said Marybell Avila, 40. “It’s the turn of the century and it’s 2,000 years since Jesus was born, and those are very special things in our lives.”

Marybell and husband Sergio, 48, cleaned out their garage and installed a television, pool table and hot dog machine. A slide for the smallest children went up in the backyard--not just any slide, but an air-filled, carnival-style ride. By 10 p.m., a dozen children--including 12-year-old Casey Ryan, in a suit and tie--were shrieking and tumbling down the slide.

There was a trampoline out back too--12-year-old daughter Maribel wanted to be midair at the stroke of midnight.

Her mother had other plans--she was preparing to gather family members and friends, then pass out white candles to each of their guests, to be lighted precisely at midnight. Instead of cheers and toasts, they asked for silence and a moment of prayer.

“It’s important to us to thank God that we can open our doors to our best friends and our family, that we’re all together at this moment,” Marybell Avila said.

For David and Anne Williams, retirees from Fullerton, New Year’s Eve was another step toward a significant milestone: They will celebrate their 50th anniversary later this year.

“This means something special,” said David Williams, 71.

He also built a “millennium machine” for his 2-year-old granddaughter. It’s actually a popcorn machine--decked out with Christmas lights and balloons--but it became a futuristic contraption when they plugged it in at midnight.

“He wanted to do something special,” 70-year-old Anne Williams said at First Night Fullerton, where fireworks were planned. “It’s mostly for our granddaughter--but it might frighten her.”

Celebration in Las Vegas

Las Vegas was one of the few Western cities striving to live up to the millennial buildup. More than 150,000 revelers were expected on the Strip, which became a carnival of tuxedos and tutus, revelers and reverends, cardboard clown hats and carefully coiffed hair. There may have been only one-quarter the number of celebrants once predicted, but those who made it were taking their partying seriously.

“I’ve been waiting 25 years for this night,” said 25-year-old Jennifer Thompson, who came from central Florida, as she swigged from a half-empty bottle of white wine. “Forget New York. Vegas is where the real party is. The gambling. The action. The free alcohol. The drunkenness.”

Most hotels were running at only about 60% occupancy. “It looks like we’re in for a millennium no busier than a typical summer weekend,” said Paul Spier, a spokesman for the Luxor and Excalibur hotels.

From Fresno, where the city’s downtown celebration attracted far fewer people than expected, to San Diego, where rain curtailed the city’s biggest party in Balboa Park, celebrations failed to match the scope and spectacle of others around the globe. In San Francisco, however, tens of thousands of people were flocking to the Embarcadero for a giant fireworks extravaganza around 11 p.m.

After years of Y2K anxiety, it would have been hard to imagine that the biggest concern in Southern California would be a rainy afternoon and evening. At only a few public sites, including the Colorado Boulevard Rose Parade route in Pasadena were there significant numbers of people gathered Friday night.

Los Angeles’ $1.1-million coordinated outdoor festivals in the Crenshaw District, San Pedro, Van Nuys and downtown attracted a total of just one or two thousand people, far short of the hundreds of thousands once predicted.

Showers all but washed out the “One Wonderful Night” outdoor party in the Crenshaw district when heavy downpours delayed the event by four hours, thwarted electrical hookups, and winnowed the crowd to 300, only a few more than the 250 singers on stage.

At the city-sponsored party at the Van Nuys Airport the excitement level was akin to that of a chess match. On radio. “I would dance,” said Tiffany Gordon, 21, looking over crowd of 200, “if there was someone to dance with.”

As midnight neared, a party mood finally descended on Los Angeles as many hundreds of people gathered to watch the lighting of the Hollywood sign by the mayor and Jay Leno. The scene resembled a pilgrimage. Clapping, cheering and sipping champagne, New Year’s revelers trekked through the winding streets of the Hollywood Hills and up Beachwood Canyon. Traffic crawled and music blasted through open doors.

Calls for police service were so scarce that Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard C. Parks sent his day watch officers home on schedule. Riordan said millennial hype had been overblown all along. “It was built up into something much bigger than it was,” said the mayor. “That’s show biz.”

In Pasadena, volunteers decorating Rose Parade floats struggled to protect them from the elements, but forecasters predicted clearing skies that should assure the parade will stay dry for the 45th consecutive year. Temperatures by the start of this afternoon’s Rose Bowl between Stanford and Wisconsin should approach 70 degrees.

The years of waiting for the prescribed “Big Moment” had dragged on for one long final day along the Pacific Coast, where television viewers watched as 19 other time zones rang in the New Year.

The tiny farming outpost of Pitt Island, New Zealand, became probably the first permanently settled community on Earth to greet the new dawn. Unprecedented security precautions greeted party-goers from coast to coast. In New York, 7,000 police officers managed the crowd in Times Square, where manhole covers had already been welded shut and all parking forbidden to prevent bombings. By nightfall, nearly all the storefronts that ring Union Square in San Francisco had been boarded over with plywood. Police in Tijuana had shut down Avenida Revolucion entirely for the Mexican city’s gala. Throughout California, massive police deployments were augmented with 1,700 National Guardsmen on call or standing by at armories around the state.

Art Benton, a Long Islander attending the Times Square celebration, spoke for partyers around the continent. “If [terrorists] are going to get you, they’ll get you,” Benton said. “But this has got to be one of the most protected places in the world, and you have to live your life, right? I’m not worried.”

Sales of Water, Flashlights

Many of those who stayed home also seemed to be preparing to hunker down, at least for the night. Bottled water and tiny, battery-operated lights were being snapped up at the Walgreen’s pharmacy in San Francisco’s financial district. One customer rushed in Thursday night to buy 50 one-gallon bottles of water (cost: $60), then had the clerks load it into her taxi.

The fizzle of some Southern California celebrations may have satisfied critics who had been saying for months that the hype surrounding Jan. 1, 2000, was something of a canard. The celebration was tied, they noted, to a Christian calendar not even invented until A.D. 526--and widely suspected to have miscalculated the true birth date of Jesus. What’s more, they protested, an accurate countdown of the old century should begin a year from now and end on Jan. 1, 2001.

But the public, the press and entrepreneurs latched on to Jan. 1, 2000, with a vengeance.

For most of 1999, the worlds of government and business obsessed over the Y2K computer anomaly. If computers failed to recognize the 2000 date, wouldn’t airline navigation systems fail, telephone connections go dead and bank transactions be stalled?

The $114 billion that Americans and their government spent to be sure that did not happen apparently worked.