Donna Huffam
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Dec 22/99) - Are you prepared for Y2K?

While businesses have been actively planning for months to combat any Y2K problems, the general public does not seem to be overly concerned about possible problems.

While some families are laying in a few extra supplies, most are quite relaxed and confident that government and businesses will continue as usual.

"I'm not anticipating any problems," says Nancy Anderson.

"I did buy some candles, but we have lots of power outages here so I thought I'd need them anyway. I just don't think it will happen."

Anita Daher picked up a few things last week, just in case.

"You don't like to sit there and feel helpless. You want to do something. Part of me felt foolish buying this storm emergency kit because I felt like I was buying into the hype.

"But then again," she adds, "I don't want my kids to be cold!"

Local businesses laid in extra stock to prepare for a rush on camping and emergency supplies.

Canadian Tire's Sean Conroy says while they haven't had any requests specifically for Y2K packages, the store has been selling a lot of storm emergency kits.

"A lot of people have been in looking for containers for storing water. We brought in a lot of extra goods," Conroy says.

"For example, we have four pallets of fire logs; we're packed to the ceiling with them. We've also been selling numerous generators, the bigger size, not to companies but to just regular people for their homes."

The biggest concern for people seems to be the integrity of their computer systems.

Shane McDonald, retail sales manager for MicroAge computer stores, feels that many people have prepared for this shift to 2000 months before.

"Most people have already checked it out and they're more concerned about their current software. We're just informing them about what's going on. We have two packages that will detect Y2K compliance problems. Both are selling really well."

For those few that are still dealing with possible hardware problems, McDonald suggests that some are just turning back the date on their system.

"If they turn the date back, the only problem is that the date on their software programs will be wrong but it will work and they'll still get use out of their old computers."

Advance planning and consumer confidence have obviously made the shift to 2000 a much easier transition than was initially anticipated.

Either that or those homeowners with woodstoves are going to have a lot of company on Jan. 1, 2000.