Thoughts of a crippling Y2K bug destroying the inner calendars and workings of computers throughout the world all came to a delightful and non-eventful end on New Year’s Eve. When the clock struck midnight, area information technology and emergency management officials encountered no problems. “There were no problems,” said John Mercer, City Hall’s chief information officer. “Everything rolled over just fine.” “It was a quieter-than-normal New Year’s Eve,” said Jerome Cala, coordinator of the Jersey City Office of Emergency Management. Mercer successfully completed the job of upgrading municipal government computers, while Jersey City emergency services were on high alert for any possible New Year’s Eve disasters. According to the Office of Emergency Management, the top concerns were directed to maintaining a functioning 911 switchboard, coordinating the police, fire and hospital services, and monitoring the power supply for the city. “People did what they needed to do and everything went fine,” Mercer said. Around the world, precautionary measures were taken to prevent any possible Y2K-related emergencies. Fears concerning bank accounts being erased, nuclear weapons mistakenly being launched, or simple elevators stranding riders between floors as the clock struck midnight all amounted to much ado about nothing. In Chicago, airline computer servers experienced problems that can be attributed to the Y2K bug. Flights scheduled to pass through the major air hub were delayed as systems were shut down for hours. In addition, there have been reports of minimal errors and oversights due to Y2K, but no major problems. The northeast, according to Y2K consultants, escaped disaster, as did most major computer systems. Mercer admitted to getting caught up in the Y2K rage, as he withdrew extra cash from the bank and purchased flashlight and radio batteries before the New Year. Local merchants reported record sales in bottled water and non-perishable foods last week, as people bunkered in their homes. According to some Y2K programmers, many countries that did absolutely no contingency planning survived the date change. In the United States, billions of dollars were spent by private and public institutions to upgrade software. “The less technical you are, in this day and age,” Mercer said, “the more Y2K-compliant you are. Less can go wrong. But here, we’re very technical, so we had a great deal more to prepare for.” It was estimated that Jersey City invested approximately $500,000 on Y2K compliance. Mercer said that similarly sized cities spilled over $10 million into their systems. “Clearly it was a real problem,” Mercer said. “The issue of embedded chips – the chips that control the date and time in certain computers – there were very real problems, and there were no simple, work-around solutions.” “Whatever we spent is well worth it,” Cala said. Many software companies made certain that their machines would not be affected by the date change, while Jersey City computers were already slated for an upgrade. Mercer was confident that the computers would roll over without a hitch, he said. Like many Y2K warriors, Mercer breathed a sigh of relief when there were no interruptions to the power grid. With PSE&G officials in a command outpost with city officials on New Year’s Eve, there were no problems or interruptions in service, Cala said. “Basically, we sat around and waited for something to happen,” Cala said. “And luckily, nothing did.” Jersey City was no different from its paranoid counterparts. At noon on Dec. 31, the city activated its OEM control center, 12 hours before the turn of the century. From there, emergency services officials closely monitored 911 systems, while they were linked to every other county in the state. If anything went wrong, a direct line to the State Emergency Operation Center was available for use. In addition, a twice-daily internet message was sent from Jersey City to the National Y2K Center to make sure that systems here were still operational. The electronic message will continue to be sent to Washington twice a day, through the next big date for computers on Feb. 29. “The Leap Year is our next big test,” Mercer said. Unsure that computers will be able to recognize the extra day in February this year, Y2K hawks will continue to man their posts until at least March. Between now and then, the first weekly and monthly reports of the century will continue to be monitored for any millennial glitches. “We are not going to be operating on the larger scale that we did on New Year’s Eve,” Cala said of the Leap Year. “I really don’t expect any problems.”