The Y2K Neighborhood

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'Dealing with Y2K honestly does bring us face-to-face with certain aspects of our lives we'd maybe rather not look at,' suggests Hoffman. 'Uncomfortable forces can be involved, like when magnets face the same pole--the force of repulsion and denial when we 'get' the potential danger of Y2K is overwhelming. Of course our psyches run for cover. Anger, disbelief and even devaluation of the issue are almost inevitable.'

Hoffman, however, also sees the silver lining glimpsed by Coopee, Boivin and many others. 'In time, especially when we see how community can support us through this, we can transition into hope and action.'

A Way Through The Rapids: The 'Y2K Neighborhood'

Nancy Schaub, a Spokane philanthropist who is working with Hoffman to launch the Y2K Neighborhood project, describes it as a process of educating the community so that neighbors can collaborate, on a door-to-door basis, to create resilient, overlapping networks of support. She says the challenge of the Millennium Bug reminds her of one of her passions: whitewater rafting. An accomplished boatwoman, every summer Schaub leads friends on adventures down the Northwest's great waterways.

'You never run a technical and potentially dangerous rapid without first scouting it,' explains Schaub, a youthful and athletic mother of three grown children. 'You get out of the boat and look for a high place where you can study the river. Before you commit yourself, you have to see the 'line,' your way through. I see many parallels with Y2K. In addressing a rapid, the most critical time is the setup, and you must have ample time for that. If you enter the rapid a little too far to the right or left, you'll never find the right way through.

I like the opportunity right now, with Y2K 16 months out, to be thinking. I'm scouting the problem. I'm preparing myself psychically, emotionally, spiritually, and I'm actually physically preparing my environment, my relations in the neighborhood, et cetera. This is the setup time. If we use it to gather the food and equipment we need, create the right plans with our neighbors, we'll enter this period of disturbance, which is just like big whitewater, in the best possible way--we've already seen a way through--and that gives us the best prospects for coming out [okay in] the end.'

Paloma O'Riley, America's high priestess of Y2K community preparedness, agrees with Schaub. She also used a wilderness metaphor to make the same point at one of her Boulder presentations. Formerly head of Y2K compliance for Land Rover, the British car maker, O'Riley and her husband raised their children for a time in the Alaskan wilderness, 100 miles by air from the nearest settlement.

'We lived with the worst-case scenario, because we had to,' she said with a chuckle. 'That doesn't mean you expect the worst, you're just ready for it. Alaska requires that.'

One of her favorite examples of worst-case scenario planning involved what could have been a tragic encounter between her toddler son and a grizzly bear. As O'Riley worked in the kitchen, the youngster slipped outside without her knowing it. Through the window she saw him halfway across the pasture, trundling toward the horse corral. At that moment a huge grizzly rose on its hind legs in brush beyond the corral. The boy was walking directly toward it.

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