Five Lessons From Y2K That Resonate Today
While we fight the coronavirus pandemic, we should remember the crises that didn’t happen — like the meltdown averted two decades ago.
Preparation counts.
Photographer: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images
As we address the tragedies of Covid-19, we should learn from past calamities, whether epidemics or economic collapse. But we can also learn from a crisis that was successfully managed — the Y2K threat to computer operations 20 years ago.
For those too young to remember the late 1990s, the Y2K bug had the world on edge. “Will computers melt down? Will society?” screamed a Time magazine cover about “Y2K insanity.” Newsweek warned of “The Day the World Crashes.” Survivalists stocked up on blankets and bottled water in anticipation of Jan. 1, 2000, the day when the modern world might grind to a halt, and planes, perhaps, fall out of the sky.