FINAL/COMPLETE "60 MINUTES" TRANSCRIPT [May 25, 1999]
greenspun.com
Excerpt
Y2K - LOOK AT HOW LOCAL GOVERNMENTS ... INCLUDING WASHINGTON DC ... ARE LESS PREPARED FOR A POSSIBLE Y2K CRASH THAN MANY THINK
KROFT: (Voiceover) But even if Washington, DC, had started preparing years earlier, there's no guarantee it could have averted these problems. Just take a look at Washington's next-door neighbor, Montgomery County, Maryland, by most accounts, the best-prepared local government in the country for Y2K problems. It began preparations more than four years ago and has spent more than $40 million on Y2K fixes and replacements ...
KROFT: (Voiceover) To make sure all the problems were solved, Montgomery County inventoried and checked all of its computer systems and every piece of equipment that had a computer chip in it--1,100 items in the fire department alone. They thought they had tested everything.
"So what happened on the first business day of 1999?"
"Well, the computer that handles building permits crashed. The building permits are good for one year, and the computer couldn't handle expiration dates in the year 2000."
"But that wasn't the only problem. The county soon learned from MICROSOFT, that the in-house computer network that handles e-mail and stores county records and was supposed to be Y2K compliant was not."
(Footage of Duncan at his desk)
KROFT: (Voiceover) And then there was that call county executive Doug Duncan got from Ericsson about the county's phone switcher, which was also supposed to be Y2K compliant.
DOUG DUNCAN: And then all of a sudden, they came back later and said, 'Oop, sorry, we made a mistake.' So now we're spending that $7 million getting a total new phone system for the county.
(Footage of Year 2000 Web site for Montgomery County)
KROFT: (Voiceover) And these are the kinds of problems being encountered in the best-prepared county in America.
"If you're not convinced that you're going to be ready for this thing now, after spending $40 million and spending five years on it, what about the other communities around the country that haven't done anything?"
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It's well worth printing out entire transcript.
Cheryl
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