Koskinen talks differently out of the states
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"growing recognition internationally of the sweep and seriousness of the Year 2000 problem"
"we've told our local governments and our state governments that they need to be prepared to handle emergencies on their own, since the federal government can't be everywhere dealing with every problem in light of the large number of problems that we are likely to have"
"we should also obviously expect that we will have a large number, possibly, of what would be manageable failures taken one at a time, which will overwhelm the normal emergency response processes when they happen all at once."
"It's clear that in the absence of information, people will assume the worst. It's also clear in any country if millions of people change their normal economic activities all at once, we'll have significant problems, even if all of the systems work just fine. No country can afford a lack of confidence that leads to runs on their financial institutions, hoarding of basic supplies, and increasedfear."
"many of them are saying they're simply going to wait, see what breaks, and then they will fix it once it's broken. We are trying to tell them that that's a very high risk roll of the dice, because when they go to get the fix, whether it's an upgrade in their software or a replacement for the software or the hardware, it will be obvious what the fix is, everyone will know how to do it, but the risk is, they will be at the end of a very long line of other people who waited to see what broke and then decided to fix it. And the fix will work just fine when it arrives, but it may not arrive until March, April or May of the year 2000, and these companies and governments and those who decided to wait and see may find that they're going to be severely challenged in continuing their operations"
"And the third thing we've asked FEMA to do is make clear to the state and local emergency managers, as I noted in my presentation, that those local governments should not assume that the federal government and FEMA will be able to come to their assistance no matter what their problem is, because we may have so many problems in localities across the country that we can't be everywhere at once. "
"that's a very important point, because it's not as if we have a choice of either sharing information and managing it or having no information, because if we don't effectively collect the information and provide a clear picture and an accurate picture, we're all
going to live with whatever CNN is showing at the time that they decide is an interesting part of the story that unfolds, or other newspapers, or magazines, and media."
-- ng (can'tprovideemail@none.com), May 04, 1999
usia.gov
Transcript: Koskinen remarks to APEC Y2K Symposium
FULL DISCUSSION OF ABOVE:
greenspun.com
Cheryl
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