As of February, 1999 it appears that Minnesota should be pretty well prepared for the Y2K bug... if departmental reports are reliable.

There are only two areas considered at high risk at this stage: Military Affairs and Public Service. All others are said to be at Moderate or Low Risk, with only the final testing remaining.

Public Service (consists mostly of Utilities)

Natural Gas: Reportedly in good shape. Very little reliance on computerization.

Telephone Service: Reportedly in good shape. Probably no problems to speak of except that on January 1, 2000 there will most likely be a usage overload so we can expect a lot of busy signals then.

Electric Power: (This is divided into three categories)
Generation -- The most dependent on computerization and therefore suseptible to disruption.
Transmission -- Only partly dependent upon computerization, only partly vulnerable
Distribution -- This is the aspect that effects individual customers receiving power at point of use. Supposedly okay.

Water: So far have located no information on this.

Military Affairs Also reported to be on the critical list for preparedness. However, assuming we are not at war with North or South Dakota, should present no problems for the average citizen.

Social Security Department

The Department reports that:

"To the best of our knowledge, the Social Security benefit estimate program is year-2000 compliant. All years are entered and saved as 4 digits. We have been entering data and calculating results for people retiring after the year 2000 for many years. The code has many built-in functions that check for valid dates, meaning that the year is at least 1800."

THE END

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