YAWN-2K NO PROBLEM FOR EMERGENCY PERSONNEL

Like the rest of the nation, Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois sailed into the new millennium Saturday untouched by any of the Y2K snafus that had been feared.

Preparation seems to have headed off whatever misfortune could have occurred had computers been fooled into thinking 1999 had just rolled over into the year 1900 instead of 2000.

After 13 months of preparation, Cape Girardeau can kiss Y2K worries good-bye, said Terry Fulk, emergency operations director for the city. Alarms, traffic lights and utilities passed over midnight and into Saturday without a hiccup, he said.

City crews spent about an hour after midnight checking traffic lights and water facilities to make sure everything was running correctly, Fulk said.

Cape Girardeau police turned computers off, then on shortly after midnight and tested communications equipment. A malfunction occurred with a playback system that records calls radioed to the dispatcher, but a spokeswoman said the device already was scheduled to be replaced. "We doubt it is Y2K related," she said of the malfunction.

Other police departments and sheriff's offices around the region reported a similar lack of problems either from Y2K or New Year's Eve celebrations. Cape Girardeau police did receive some calls about fireworks being discharged before 11:30 p.m. and after 12:30 a.m., as allowed by law, but no one was cited.

Vandals struck at the "Welcome to Jackson" on Highway 61 at the northern city limits overnight Friday. "They stole Andrew Jackson's head," a spokesman for the Jackson Police Department said.

Cape Girardeau firefighters gave fire engines with computer-guided equipment a post-midnight trial run. Everything passed inspections, Fulk said.

Crews were at Cape Girardeau's Department of Public Works and its water operations at midnight to respond if anything happened. "There were no problems with any of the systems," said Public Works Director Doug Leslie. "It looks like all the preparation worked out just fine."

Similar procedures were followed at Jackson. "

"Everything was just as we hoped it would be normal," said City Administrator Steve Wilson.

Wilson said the city had run Y2K tests on its computers four months ago.

Fulk expects to have some minor computer-related mishaps to handle on Monday from businesses. But for the most part, the work of Cape Girardeau's Y2K committee is finished.

Local banks reported no problems. If a customer finds an ATM is out of service somewhere on Jan. 1, it's just coincidence said Max Cook, Missouri Bankers Association president in a news release.

He cautioned against mistaking a simple maintenance problem as evidence of a Y2K disaster.

"At any one time, 1 to 2 percent of ATMs across the country can be out of service for routine maintenance... the same as any other day of the year," Cook said.

Cape Girardeau County experienced no problems with the new year, said David b, county emergency management director. Hitt also contacted several other counties in the region, as well as St. Francis Medical Center and Southeast Missouri Hospital. All reported a safe transition into 2000, he said.

Hitt filed reports with the Federal Emergency Management Agency on the county's condition at 10 p.m. Friday and at 2 a.m. Saturday. The reports, sent by Internet, assessed 15 categories, including food, energy, water and financial services.

Among Southeast Missouri counties, only Perry and Stoddard were also required to file the federal Y2K assessment.

"The idea is if everything is all right in Cape County, it's probably all right in Scott County, too," Hitt said. "Not much changes when you cross county lines."

Not every county has the computer capacity to send such a report, he said.

Nothing at all in the way of Y2K problems occurred in Illinois, according to Mike Chamness, director of the state Emergency Management Agency.

"We were in contact with all 102 counties," he said. "It really was a very quiet night."

As a precaution, Amtrak and other railways in the state stopped running before midnight and successfully started right back up afterward, Chamness said.

More than 6,000 state employees from a variety of agencies were on duty Friday night to handle any problems.

The EOC had planned to keep its office fully activated through 8 p.m. Saturday but shift to a lower level of readiness because everything went so well.

As a precaution, Chamness said, a state of readiness will resume at 6 a.m. Monday for the first day of business in the year 2000.

At Metropolis, Ill., Players Island Casino also reported no Y2K-related difficulties.

Telephone, cable TV and utilities were not affected by the Y2K bug as some had feared.

Doug Groesbeck, district manager for AmerenUE, was in his office Saturday morning checking the outage screen. "Since 2 p.m. Friday until this morning out outage screen has been blank," he said.

Some isolated outages were reported about noon Friday in southern counties, with some multiple outages reported in the Charleston area due to blown fuses. Those were repaired within a few hours.

"These were normal events and had nothing to do with Y2K," Groesbeck said.

He said the company had some extra personnel in the field, in part because AmerenUE thought more people might be traveling on this special New Year's Eve, increasing the possibility of a vehicle hitting a utility pole and causing an outage.

"And with all the attention to Y2K computer concerns we needed to be on top of any outages that could occur so that we could get the word back," Groesbeck said.

But Y2K oversight continues Monday with the potential for the billing side of businesses to be affected.

Neither Cape Girardeau hospital reported any kind of Y2K difficulty.

Cape Girardeau police reported only one arrest for driving while intoxicated. A spokeswoman said New Year's Eve usually isn't a popular night for DWIs because people have parties at their houses and are especially careful.

Elsewhere in Cape Girardeau, people were spending the first day of 2000 in activities rather mundane for the beginning of a new millennium.

• Marika Miya, a 24-year-old Southeast Missouri State University student, was one of many people at Capaha Park on Saturday. She was playing with her Chihuahua, Akubi.

Miya had been up late welcoming in the new millennium and was spending New Year's Day taking it easy.

Besides being a little worried about whether ATM machines would be working after midnight, she said she wasn't concerned about bad things happening with the start of the new year. Still, like others talked to for this story, she was relieved when no problems surfaced.

Asked to look into the future, she said she's looking no further than her spring graduation and whether she can get into graduate school.

• The Osage Center gym was busy on Saturday with people starting the new millennium with a workout. Manning the desk was Jackson High School senior Janice Doberenz, who works there part-time.

She said the only bad part about working New Year's Day was getting up early after a party the night before.

Doberenz said she got a momentary scare when the lights went out at midnight at that party. But it was only the host's parents playing a trick on their guests.

"For a second, we thought all those predictions had come true, but then they turned the lights back on and we thought it was funny," said Doberenz.

• Inside the gym was Tim Martin, playing basketball as he does every time he has a free day, he said. He was resting up during a long holiday weekend and preparing to go back to work at Auto Tire and Parts on Monday.

Like the other people interviewed for this story, Martin hadn't made any resolutions. "I never keep them anyway," he said.

• Also resting up before going back to work on Monday was Rick McClard, who was found Saturday afternoon sitting on a couch at Patrick Furniture Mart while his wife, Becky, was looking for bargains.

"I'm ready for school to start again," said McClard, who is principal of Jackson High School. "It's nice to have some days off, but it gets kind of boring without the kids."

He said furniture shopping on New Year's Day has become a tradition for him and his wife. "It's just something to do."

• It's something to do for a lot of people if the crowds at Patrick Furniture and Hutson's Furniture are any indication. Both stores were packed with shoppers on Saturday.

"We're a little surprised at the crowd," said Pat Young, whose grandfather started Patrick Furniture and began having New Year's Day sales more than 20 years ago. "It's been one of our busiest days."

• Alice and Jim Whittaker took advantage of Saturday's mild sunny weather to wash their car.

"We're just taking it easy," Alice Whittaker said as she handed her husband quarters to feed into slots at the self-serve car wash at Themis and Middle.

The middle-aged couple were well-rested since they went to bed early on New Year's Eve. However, they did get up long enough to admire the fireworks being set off in the neighborhoods near them, Alice said.

She couldn't share her New Year's resolutions, because she said she doesn't make them anymore.

"I found I would just break them anyway," she said. "I decided to take things one day at a time and see what happens."