Jan 2024. Blues Vol 40 No. 1

WORDS BY SGT. MICHAEL BARRON, RET.
Final Flight of 1999 - Y2K Fizzle
Twenty-five years ago, New
Year’s Eve was anticipated to be
a disaster in the making. It was
1999 and when the clock struck
midnight, all hell was supposed
to break loose. If you were too
young to remember what Y2K
was, let me refresh your memory.
(no computer pun intended)
The term “Y2K” stands for the
“Year 2000.” It refers to a potential
computer bug that was
expected to cause widespread
issues when the calendar rolled
over from December 31, 1999,
to January 1, 2000. The concern
was rooted in the way dates
were represented in computer
systems.
In the early days of computing,
many computer systems and
software programs represented
years using only the last two
digits. For example, the year 1998
would be stored as “98.” This
abbreviated date format posed
a problem as the year 2000
approached because there was
a fear that computers would
interpret the year 2000 as “00,”
potentially causing errors in calculations
and data processing.
The concern was that many
systems and applications relied
on date calculations for various
functions, and if they couldn’t
correctly interpret the year 2000,
it might lead to errors, system
failures, or data corruption.
There were fears that essential
systems, such as those used in
finance, telecommunications, and
utilities, could malfunction, leading
to widespread disruptions.
In the world of policing, dispatch
computers were expected
to crash, 911 systems would
go off line, traffic lights would
cease to work, there would
be mass blackouts as the grid
would crash, and speaking of
crashing, it was possible that
planes could crash when Air
Traffic Control computers quit.
Given the extreme nature of
this Armageddon event, most
every police agency in world
was on high alert and as a result,
canceled days off and vacations
and called everyone in. No one
really knew what was going to
happen at midnight. It was just a
wait and see attitude across the
country.
A couple of weeks before
Christmas that year, I got a call
from Lt. John King at HPD Helicopters
and asked if I wanted to
get on the flight roster for New
Year’s Eve and help them out as
an observer. Sheriff Joe Max was
more than willing to give up one
Sgt. on the street to gain access
to a helicopter if all hell broke
loose in Galveston. I called the LT
and asked what time the party
started, and 4pm it was.
Their captain at the time was
not thrilled to have to work New
Years and in fact, I don’t think he
had worked ANY Christmas holiday
for the past ten years. That
was his set ‘vacation’ time and
he’d be damned if he was going
to work. But apparently the
Chief said it was all hands-on
deck and yes Captain that meant
you too. So, he made a party out
of it, brought his wife and they
made chili and all kinds of side
dishes. “If the world was going
to end, by damn we were going
to eat well before we all die,”
he said as I walked in the door.
Die. No-one said anything about
dying.
116 The Blues - January ‘24