If you had been an adult at the beginning of the Depression, or on the eve of World War II, and you had figured out what was about to happen, what would your reaction be? Suppose that, in addition to making preparations to improve your family’s chances of personal safety, you were telling your friends what was coming, but most of them didn’t believe you? If you can imagine yourself in such a scenario, you will have some understanding of my actions over the last year or so. I have had no divine revelation, only common-sense warnings that I believed.

It has been a year since I began printing articles in the HSJ, trying to raise the awareness level of fellow homeschoolers that the Year 2000 computer problem, or Y2K, is a serious one that will affect each family personally. It is not just a government or business problem, as the few articles about it in the Winston-Salem Journal suggest. It will have, I believe, profound social and economic effects comparable to those of the Depression or the war. My suspicion is that the mainstream press is not carrying more comprehensive articles about it because reporters don’t believe it either, or else because stories may be being squelched or soft-pedaled to avoid panicking the public. There have been a few articles in major publications, most recently in the June 8 issue of U.S. News & World Report. Many more are available on the Internet. There has also been some television coverage.

My son Daeron, a computer software consultant, gave a seminar last fall. He stated that we did not know for sure how computers would react to the millennial date change, and that there was a chance that our fears of widespread crashes or corruption of data might be overblown. In the months since then, we have gotten a better idea of what’s in store. Many companies, utilities, and some government agencies have begun repair of their faulty computer code and have run various tests. There have been so many systems failures when clocks were set ahead — in such important functions as electric power generation and distribution, for example — that most people in positions of responsibility are no longer treating Y2K as a joke. Officials have stopped talking about “whether” loss of critical services will occur, but rather “how bad” and “how long” the disruptions will be.

We have experienced a number of failures, some not even Y2K-related, that give us a taste of what’s coming. The most recent was a computer problem aboard a communications satellite that knocked out most personal pagers for several days. True, a substitute system soon had them working again, but try to imagine this kind of failure happening in numerous types of systems, all over the world, at the same time, with the backups affected too. Then you have an idea of what we can look forward to on January 1, 2000, if the systems are not fixed in time. The combination of the denial of many people, delay in assessments and repairs, shortage of qualified people to do the work, enormous expense, and immovable deadlines virtually guarantee that a great many businesses, utilities, and government agencies will not complete their repairs in time. The interconnectedness of computers and programs raises the likelihood that even ones that have been made Y2K-compliant may be contaminated with bad data from non-compliant ones. And if the power goes out, the banks fail, and/or the telecommunications system breaks down, even those companies that are compliant will be unable to operate. The worst problems could be over in a matter of a few days — or it could be years.

Among those people still denying the seriousness of the problem, a popular justification is that computer program-mers are deliberately spreading gloom and doom stories in order to increase demand for their services and inflate their salaries. But if this were the case, would you expect the CEOs of large companies to be completely bamboozled, to the tune of tens of millions of dollars each? This is what major manufacturers such as General Motors are spending on repairs. No, Y2K is not a gimmick.

A typical reaction among ordinary people upon learning all this is to say, “Hmm, that’s interesting,” and then to move on to the next news story. Too many have simply not made the connection to their own lives. They should be informing themselves further and preparing in the ways they think best for their own situation. Not everybody can or should move to a farm or stock a cabin in the remote woods with survivalist-type supplies, but there are some minimal preparations that almost any family can make, including:

1. Purchase some water-purification and storage equipment.
   
2. Store some non-perishable foods and other supplies.
   
3. Obtain a camp stove and fuel or other means by which to cook without electricity.
   
4. Find some alternative home heating system such as a fireplace or wood stove and wood.
   
5. Lay in some cash in case banks close or mess up people’s accounts.
   
6. Purchase tools and seeds for raising food gardens.
   
7. Decide now how you will respond to hungry people and possible thieves or looters.
   
8. Keep records of bank accounts, insurance policies, payments, tax returns, and other such documents.
   
9. Back up personal computer files with disks and paper copies.

Some Christian friends have told me, “If it’s going to be that bad, we’ll just have to trust in the Lord to protect us during the hard times.” Of course, of course! None of us knows exactly what we are preparing for, and dependence upon God is necessary in any case. But the Bible is full of examples and admonishments to prepare for disasters, including fleeing them. Refer to the stories of Noah, Lot, Joseph, etc. I believe Scripture supports dependence upon God’s grace for whatever we can’t do for ourselves, but also encourages us to do what we can. Christians prepare for life’s mishaps in a number of ways already — they buy life and medical insurance, don’t they? Does this reflect lack of faith? — or wise use of resources? During the ice storm a couple of winters ago, didn’t it pay to be prepared?

I read a story about a philosophy professor in Berlin when Hitler first arose. Foreseeing what would happen to Germany, the professor planned his strategy. He changed the subject he taught from philosophy to mathematics (a much less controversial one), and sought out a position at a rural school some distance from the city. It took him many months, and he had to accept a cut in his standard of living by relocating, but he survived the subsequent events with his life, his family, and his finances relatively intact.