Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Cooperative Works To Be Y2K Compliant

South Central Arkansas Electric Cooperative (SCAEC) recently participated in the North American-wide Y2K readiness drill.

During the drill, which was organized by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), SCAEC went through a dress rehearsal' for the transition from December 31 to January 1, 2000, said Bobby Manning, SCAEC's Y2K drill coordinator. SCAEC's customers didn't experience any service disruptions as a result of the drill.

"This drill was an excellent exercise for our employees," Manning said, adding that the drill confirmed that SCAEC's system and workforce are ready for the rollover. "We experienced a few minor problems with some areas of communication, but not anything uncommon from a normal outage situation."

Initial reports from across the United States and Canada indicate that about 15,000 people participated in the drill at 400 to 500 electric utilities. Control-center operators, power plant operators, substation technicians, computer technicians and many others performed their roles in the drill as they will on December 31.

The electricity industry will use lessons learned from this drill to continue improving contingency plans, training and other preparations for the transition to the new century.

South Central Arkansas Electric Cooperative is a member-owned cooperative serving approximately 10,000 meters over 1,690 miles of line in seven counties throughout this area.