I am gravely concerned at the under-reporting on Y2K by Lee Davidson in the March 3 article entitled "Y2K in U.S. may end up as just a bump in road, Bennett says." If one reads the actual report from the Senate committee, one sees not just a "bump in the road" but a serious disruption to our current way of life.
Let us see if your readers can follow this one of many scenarios (of which eight major areas are listed in the Senate Report):To quote the report (page 6), "For example, the Gartner Group estimates that Venezuela and Saudi Arabia (two of the largest U.S. oil importers) are 12 to 18 months behind the U.S. in their Y2K remediation efforts."
The report states later (page 32) that Venezuela and Saudi Arabia import 16.2 percent and 14.4 percent, respectively, of oil into this country. The United States consumes about 18 million barrels per day (Mbbls/day) from all sources and imports make up about 9 Mbbls/day. This percentage translates, roughly, into 1.458 Mbbls/day for Venezuela and 1.296 Mbbls/day for Saudi Arabia.
Interestingly, this number (2.7 Mbbls) is about one tanker full of oil per day just from these two countries. Uh oh. Looks like maybe Venezuela's not going to be ready (page 32).
So, let's say Venezuela is unable to ship any oil to the United States. They have civil unrest or their banking system fails or the telecom system goes buttons-up or equivalent (pages 144-145).
Let's say that Saudi Arabia is also not ready and at high risk of failure to deliver oil to the United States (page 32). Let's further suppose, for the sake of argument, that all the other countries that supply the United States are completely unaffected. Let's even go a step further and pretend that Venezuela and Saudi Arabia don't ship oil to any other countries.
So that means an immediate shortfall of 2.7 Mbbls/day.
Consequences -- In 1973 there was an oil embargo. The overall (yearly) effect of the crisis was rather small in delivered barrels, but the peak daily shortfall from the embargo was about 2 Mbbls/day. Do you remember the long lines? I do.
(By the way, the Strategic Oil Reserve is about 650 Mbbls, so if all imports ceased completely, we could keep driving our Explorers, Expeditions and Jimmys for almost 3 months before we sucked the reserve dry and had to think more.)
So . . . if Saudi Arabia and Venezuela don't send oil, that will have the same effect as the 1973 embargo at its peak. That's without accounting for all the other bumps in the road: health-care failure over 60 percent, Y2K litigation over $1 trillion, water supply and sewer problems over 14 percent, "if today were Jan. 1, 2000, the world's airlines would fail," 50 percent of the power utilities not able to supply power and 40 percent of 14 million small businesses potentially failing. (Please see Senate report, pp. 1-6, for a summary, as well as the details in the remainder of the report.)
Lastly, consider this Senate report as a government trying to calm the public about a potentially serious condition which FEMA Deputy Director Mike Walker states, "Every community, every organization and every individual has an obligation to learn more about their vulnerabilities and take action to prevent potential problems before they occur. Potential problems need to be identified and addressed now."
Read the Senate report yourself http://www.senate.gov/y2k/reportcontents.html, then contact the American Red Cross, your ward and the Utah Department of Public Safety (CEM) for information on how to prepare. It is time to work as a community to help and minister through what may be very hard times. I pray that I am wrong.
Mike Nelson is a health and safety instructor who resides in Taylorsville.