The Y2K rollover came and went without a cascade of calamities in Utah, the United States or around the world. So what's next?
"I'm going to keep watch through Monday, then I'm going to add an entry to my journal saying, 'All is well, and let's move on to the 21st century,' " Gov. Mike Leavitt said at his wrap-up Y2K briefing with reporters early Saturday.The governor was not alone in expressing wait-and-see caution.
American and business officials hope the once-feared Y2K computer bug has as little effect when the work week gets under way Monday as it apparently did during the millennial transition from 1999 to 2000.
Not that everything was glitch-free: Five nuclear power plants reported minor computer problems, and the Pentagon said a reconnaissance satellite was out of commission for a few hours, among other hiccups.
None of the nuclear plant problems "affected anything to do with safe operations, and most were corrected immediately after discovery," said John Koskinen, chairman of the President's Council on
Year 2000 Conversion. The satellite blackout was remedied by a shift to a backup system and did not involve America's early warning defense system, said Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre.
Though confident that billions of dollars in corrective repairs and updates had taken the sting out of the Y2K bug, public and corporate officials took no chances during the weekend, calling upon thousands of employees to do everything from keeping tabs on computers to dropping by workplaces to flip a few switches.
In Utah, Leavitt, Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and a cadre of other officials scanned reports of state, federal and international events as the new year approached Utah time zone by time zone. Representatives from state agencies, the FBI, the Red Cross and the National Guard joined coordinators for utilities, banks and other private sectors under the closest Y2K watch at the command center. Some interacted with reporters one floor up in a communications center in the State Office Building behind the Capitol.
If all went well, the operation was scheduled to shut down at 1 a.m. Saturday. The governor finished his final briefing at 1:02 a.m., and the stampede for the exit began.
The power was still on. Natural gas was still flowing to heaters in homes throughout the valley.
Not far away at the Salt Lake International Airport, workers conducting checks of airfield reporting systems, lighting, firefighting and communications hardware had mandated reports in to the Federal Aviation Administration by 2 a.m. -- three hours ahead of schedule.
Delta Air Lines, the major carrier out of the Salt Lake airport, reported Saturday morning that all of its computer systems operated as expected during the change to 2000. "Our goal was to operate normally, safely -- our regular daily expectation. We achieved our goal. . . ," said Walter Taylor, Delta technology vice president.
US WEST officials watched traffic on their network in Minneapolis double for about 18 minutes as midnight struck in the Central Time Zone, one hour ahead of midnight in Salt Lake City. When midnight struck here, the network spiked at 2.5 times its normal traffic, but the network was back to normal traffic in 10 minutes, said spokesman Ray Child. Some callers had to dial several times to complete a call during the spike, but midnight was no more than a speed bump for the telecommunications system.
Several other local agencies continued to put out the word Saturday that all went well. Weber County Emergency Management said it had no reports of "identifiable Y2K problems." Zions Bank announced that all of its "mission-critical" systems were operating correctly, and the Utah League of Credit Unions reported no problems with any of its members.
Hill Air Force Base reported no glitches with its Utah systems or for personnel deployed worldwide.
The Tooele Chemical Agent Disposal Facility stopped incinerating chemical weapons at 10 p.m. Friday, as planned, as a precaution. Each of the plant's systems was checked again after midnight, but no problems were found.
Bennett said his Senate Y2K committee painted best- and worst-case scenarios for the transition to 2000 and saw something he did not expect.
"The best-case scenario is what we are seeing, and we're not used to that," he said. "We hedged our bets with things that could happen, just in case, but none of the information we've developed in the committee would predict what we're seeing tonight."
Bennett said he plans to return to Washington, D.C., for Monday evening briefings that will follow the first business day after the Y2K rollover. His Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem will continue through leap day, Feb. 29, and then disband -- unless something crops up between now and then. "We can always extend it, but it doesn't look like we will need to."
And for attorneys expecting Y2K litigation would be a significant part of their practice in the coming years, he said, "They will be disappointed, and that's always good news."
One concern going into the date change was that Y2K glitches could multiply because of interconnected computer networks, such as the Internet. But Bennett said the random nuisance events seen around the globe -- medical equipment failing in Malaysia and computers setting clocks 35 hours ahead in Wisconsin, to name a few -- were isolated and were not likely to cascade into bigger problems.
"After we go through a full day of normal business (Monday), I think we will see some examples in America that are just as isolated and just as anecdotal as the ones I have mentioned," he said.
Utah National Guard spokesman Col. George Becker said the governor wanted the Guard to maintain a low-profile watch through the New Year. "We're leaning forward, but we're not jumping out of the fox hole," Becker said.
Quick-response procedures were in place if help was needed in any of the 29 communities around the state that have a National Guard armory. Otherwise, each armory had someone on duty New Year's Eve to report in to the state command center, then they followed-up after checking power and communications systems at the armories Saturday morning.
Leavitt ended the state Y2K vigil by saying the transition was so smooth it exceeded his expectations. "I think you would just have to say this was not only impressive, it was remarkable.
"This may be as significant a time as I can think of, when every part of society has performed this enormous role to solve a problem," Leavitt said. "It is very refreshing and a great way to start the 21st century."
Deseret News assignment editor Gregory P. Kratz and the Associated Press contributed to this report.