‘Millennium Bug’ doesn’t bite River Parish computer systems
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, January 5, 2000
Leonard Gray, Daniel Gooden and Erik Sanzenbach / L’Observateur / January 5, 2000
The so-called “Millennium Bug” didn’t even raise an itch in the River Parishes, as government and police services rolled into 2000 without a hitch in computer systems.
In St. Charles Parish, the biggest problem wasn’t Y2K-related, as Shell Oiland Shell Chemical in Norco experienced a massive power failure at 4:14 a.m. Sunday, according to Lilly Galland. Power was restored in 24 minutes,but bringing units back online will take through next week.
Nichole Breaux of St. Charles Parish’s council office reported, “It’s justlike normal,” after the weekend. “So far, nobody’s called me with anycomplaints.”Tab Troxler, director of St. Charles Parish’s emergency operationsdepartment said everything went extremely well for his department.
“You would never know it wasn’t any other night,” he said.
Troxler added he had extra staff on duty from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m. Dec. 31 and,”in a four-hour period, if we had 10 or 12 phone calls, we had plenty.”Those were related to other concerns, such as fireworks, he said.
St. Charles Parish Hospital was OK, too. Jerry Desselle, marketing directorat St. Charles Parish Hospital, said, “No problem!” in response to inquiries.Extra personnel were on standby through 1 a.m. Saturday.”We had people in various departments throughout the day, backing up systems and files,” Desselle said. “It all worked out.”Allison Prendergast, senior communications specialist for Entergy’s Waterford 3 nuclear power plant in Taft, said, “We did absolutely fine. Itwas like ho-hum.”Prendergast added that crews continued throughout the night on post-Y2K checklists and observed, “The worst part of the night was the fog as people went home.”John Adams, customer service manager for Entergy, said of the bug’s absence, “We kind of knew it would be all right.”More than 50 people manned the repair and rapid-response center on Airline Highway in Reserve throughout that night. “Everybody did a goodjob,” Adams said.
St. John the Baptist Parish computer systems were also “bug-less” for thenew century. If there were any hitches, they were very minor.Sean Rouselle, spokesman for River Parishes Hospital, said they had some minor glitches on personal computers, but there were “no problems” at all with machines that affect patient care. The hospital is a little miffed,however, because, as of Tuesday morning, they still didn’t have something they would like to have, and that is the first baby of the millennium.
“We didn’t have any pregnancies come in on New Year’s Eve,” said Roussel, “and we are still waiting.”The parish government is also reporting smooth sailing.
Bertram Madere, director of St. John Civil Defense and EmergencyPreparedness, said two years of preparation really paid off.
“Everything worked perfect,” said Madere. “No glitches at all, andeverything is A-OK in St. John Parish.”Capt. Mike Tregre of the Sheriff’s Office reported,” New Year’s Eve was atypical evening. We had a lot of firework calls, but no problems withcomputers. No glitches at all.”Marva Lumar, a supervisor at the Clerk of Courts office said there were no problems there, either. “And we don’t expect any,” she added.Over at the St. John School Board, Robert Brown, technology coordinator,reported everything was “very smooth with no problems. In fact, we’ve hadworse Monday mornings than this one.”All the private and parochial schools also reported that the “millennium bug” did not pay them a visit.
Cindy DeRoche, school secretary at St. Charles Catholic, summed up thefirst day of school in the new millennium this way: “We haven’t had anybody pulling their hair out, or running down the hall screaming in frustration,” she said. “We ‘ve been up and running since 6 a.m. Mondaymorning, and we plan to keep on running.”And in St. James Parish, finance director A.J. Laiche said they have had noproblems to speak of.
Laiche said the parish’s biggest concern was a potential power loss to government buildings, from the St. James Youth Center to the Sheriff’sOffice. “We made sure generators were working, just in case,” he said.However, he added, “No computers have given us any problems, whatsoever.”St. James School Board technology coordinator Harry Zeringue said, “Thestudents’ software had been transferred to new machines, while the old computers were fixed with various patches before the new year.”Those precautionary measures allowed the St. James School System toroll over into the new year without any difficulty.
And Eric Derocha at the St. James Department of Emergency Preparednessconfirmed that “everything had changed over perfectly” in the new year and, as expected, “there were no problems.”
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