News from the Oklahoma Corporation Commission

Jim Palmer, Director of Information

January 4, 2000

(OKLAHOMA CITY)—The many public utilities serving millions of Oklahoma consumers helped make the Y2K transition go off without a problem last weekend. Encouragement for nearly two years to make regular reports to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) about the status of their Y2K preparedness helped the various electric, natural gas and telephone utility services in the state learn just how ready they were and complete preparations. All facility-based utilities, realizing the importance of uninterrupted service to their Oklahoma customers, became Y2K compliant before the end of 1999.

Commission Chairman Bob Anthony said "The fact that no Y2K-related service outages were reported during the key hours of concern is a tribute to the utility companies determination to serve their customers and to the hard work of the staffs of the Public Utility, Consumer Services and Data Processing Divisions of the Commission."

OCC General Administrator Jay Edwards said "The Commission, through its public utility staff, analyzed hundreds of quarterly reports starting in 1998 and made the information on Y2K readiness available to the public. It was the final compilation of those reports which the OCC made available to the state’s Y2K emergency operations center (EOC) and the Governor’s Y2K task force which helped ease the concerns of consumers."

It was at the EOC during the final few days leading up to New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day where interested and concerned citizens talked with employees staffing the phones and learned again about the high degree of readiness of their utility services.

Anthony said "Both the utilities and the Corporation Commission will continue to be vigilant with regard to future service problems whether or not they are related to Y2K ."

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