Y2K has many people stocking up

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By CAROL ROBINSON

and JOHN ARCHIBALD

News Staff Writers

8/19/98

Survival in the early days if the year 2000 may depend on a case of beans or a well-stocked pantry, some Alabamians believe.

The countdown to the year 2000 has begun, and survivalists and others who fear the consequences of a Y2K global computer glitch are taking no chances.

Their numbers are vast, said Mike Vanderboegh, editor ofThe John Doe Timesand self-described Internet Journalist.

"They're uncounted and uncountable. Many, many," Vanderboegh said Tuesday.

There have always been survivalists, he said. They believe the infrastructure of society is fragile, that people have lost the ability to be self-sufficient and their darker impulses will take over if food and other amenities become scarce. The threat of Y2K-related confusion confirms what they already believed and gives them a deadline to work toward, he said.

"They don't trust the government or authorities to be able to handle a large disruption," he said.

Some are putting back a year's worth of food for each member of their family and moving from the city. They want to be self-sufficient in energy and food, he said, from vegetable garden seeds to generators and solar-powered homes.

"It covers quite the gamut, from bomb shelters to canned goods," Vanderboegh said.

Y2K, which refers to the year 2000, is a potential global computer glitch that stems from an em bedded chip in most older computers that won't allow the machines to recognize the year 2000. Instead of reading 2000, many will read 1900, and that could create untold problems with the world's electrical grids, financial markets and computer-aided government and business functions.

What's interesting, Vanderboegh said, is the number of computer folks, not being survivalists, who are beginning to understand the fragility of computer systems. "It's like the Intelligent Gremlin in Gremlins II," he said. "We're putting our money in canned food and shotguns."

Jim McLendon, Alabama coordinator for the John Birch Society, said his group is not officially concerned about the issue, but person ally he is preparing.

"I think I would be prudent to have probably two or three weeks or a month at the most of something to eat and a way to cook it," McClendon said. "I have people that think electricity will be down for three years, and I think that's ludicrous, but I certainly think there could be a problem."

McClendon said he's not a "computer nerd" but he knows enough to be concerned about the date-sensitive embedded chips. "I don't think we need to be paranoid, but I think it pays to be concerned," he said. "That doesn't mean grab the shot gun and run for the hills."

Pleasant Grove resident Don Casey, a maintenance mechanic at U.S. Steel, said he has a keen interest in what the year 2000 will bring.

"I know there are many people who are doing this, not just me," he said. "I'm not willing to just lay out exactly what I'm doing. I think this will be a pretty heavy hit on society globally, and what I'm doing is private."

Casey said he, too, knows people who are moving out of the city in anticipation of problems.

"If the Social Security checks and the welfare checks don't make it to people and there's no communications for help, what do you think an immoral society would do?" he said. "I think that if we have no emergency communications, there will probably at least be some rioting."

Casey said people have differing views on the severity of the Y2K impact. He said he's somewhere in the middle.

"I'm thinking that it's going to be more than a bump in the road, but it's not going to be an apocalypse," he said. "I've put back some canned goods. Everybody's grandparents used to keep pantries full of food for emergencies. FEMA is asking to keep week's worth of food on the shelf. It's a matter of coming back to reality."