News Division by Tim Ortman

Author:Tim Ortman [Ortman, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-08-30T16:00:00+00:00

14

Election Rejection

As the last millennium came to an end, the world wondered what digitally generated havoc would be created by computers’ inability to transition from 1999 to 2000. No computer had ever actually processed a date with three zeros. The flames of public fear were fanned by numerous experts as well as the media, who wrote about disturbing scenarios affecting everything from the financial and telecommunications industries to public utilities. Even the Department of Defense worried about doomsday situations. Then United States Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre stated, “The Y2K problem is the electronic equivalent of the El Niño and there will be nasty surprises around the globe.”1

Entire niche industries were created to reprogram, test, and guard against computer failure catastrophes. A presidential commission was formed to study the possibly dire consequences. Programing giants like Microsoft tried to allay the public hysteria by predicting there would only be minor glitches. Still, people wondered… what if?

Y2K disasters or not, the news media was going to cover that particular New Year’s celebration like a blanket. Some networks began their day-long coverage in Sidney, Australia and followed the New Year as it swept west across the globe.

Stacy Brady would be supervising the technical staffing for NBC’s global coverage. Jack, as the Denver Bureau Chief, reached out to me first to gauge my interest in working on the Y2K story. I had no interest in covering a bunch of drunken partyers in the streets of Denver—or New York City, for that matter. I told him I’d much rather stay at home and raise a glass with Amy and friends. But he had planned a different angle on the Y2K story for December 31, 1999.

The headquarters for our nation’s air defense system was buried inside a mountain in Colorado Springs. Cheyenne Mountain was the top-secret subterranean home to North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). This was the location from which our military monitored the heavens, watching for and warning against incoming ballistic missile and air attacks on North America. It was a highly secure, almost secretive facility hidden deep inside a granite mountain. If there was going to be a glitch with major implications, it would occur at Cheyenne Mountain. The government, confident that this would not be the case, invited us to observe.

It’s not the kind of place that offers regular tours. It is the kind of place that makes for interesting news coverage and the kind of once in a lifetime assignment that I’d happily accept.

Instead of simply watching and reporting on the inevitable nothing happening on New Year’s Eve, Jack pitched NORAD on the idea of showing the valuable mission performed inside Cheyenne Mountain. Astonishingly, the military agreed.

Once our credentials were approved, we traveled to Colorado Springs the day before New Year’s Eve. Outside the mountain, our team of Jack, Roger, Steve, and I cleared an extremely rigorous checkpoint, including inspections of both gear and personnel. We then boarded a military vehicle that took us through a seemingly endless mile-long tunnel and to our final destination.

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