Y2K - Clinton Readies 50 State Emergency Declarations...12/20/99
 
WASHINGTON, D.C. (BP) - Fifty declarations of emergency, one for each state, have been prepared for President Clinton to sign on New Year's weekend if regional computer glitches occur in the United States due to the "Y2K" problem.
 
"For the weekend beginning New Year's Eve, we have prepared 50 emergency declarations in case there is any scenario in which a local area's problems cannot be handled by local and state emergency personnel and a request for a presidential declaration of emergency is requested by a governor," said Mark Wolfson, a spokesman for the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Baptist Press.
 
FEMA, based in Georgia, is responsible for coordinating the federal government's nonmilitary response to all national emergencies, such as those caused by acts of terrorism, war, hurricanes, tornadoes and disruptions of power or other necessary services which could be sparked by Y2K glitches related to computer's coping with the turn of the millennium.
 
Federal authorities and civilian experts on the Y2K bug expect, at most, regional essential service disruptions in the United States. But widespread, serious and life-threatening problems could occur in other nations, especially those such as Russia, which lack the funds to pay to upgrade their systems to prevent Y2K computer glitches.
 
"We could see massive failures of power, phone and other communications systems in Russia and other nations that have reasonably developed infrastructure but which have failed to spend the billions needed to ensure their systems will not crash," said Michael Hyatt, author of "The Millennial Bug" and "The Y2K Personal Survival Guide," both published by Regenery Press. Hyatt is a vice president of Thomas Nelson Publishers in Nashville, Tenn.