� Ninety percent

of Georgia's essential service providers have

responded to the survey. Of the surveys received,

63 percent were scored green and 29 percent

yellow, leaving only 8 percent in the red

category.

� While there are

still areas of concern, the overall assessment of

Georgia's essential services is that a majority

of providers are ready for the rollover into the

year 2000. Georgia should experience few

disruptions of essential services due to year

2000 problems.

� The Citizen's

Task Force is still concerned about the 10

percent of survey recipients who haven't

responded and the 8 percent that scored red.

(Processes are being put in place for the next

and final round of surveys to address these

entities.) Survey respondents got a red or Not

Ready/Questionable score if the Testing and/or

Certification question of the survey showed a

projected completion date beyond September 30,

1999. Thus, a red score for many respondents

means that the respondent does not expect to

complete testing and certification until sometime

in the fourth quarter 1999. If the respondent

reported that it has a completed contingency plan

to address potential failures in critical systems

that will not be tested and/or certified before

September 30, 1999, it was were scored yellow.

Public Service

Commission � The Public Service Commission

surveys cover the providers of electricity,

natural gas, and local and long distance

telephone services. The response rate for these

providers increased dramatically in round two.

The overall response rate is 90 percent, and 93

percent of those entities scored green or yellow.

The number that are red or non-responsive is

small, and all but three, two municipal electric

services and one municipal gas service, are

Competitive Local Exchange providers or Inter

Exchange Carriers with very small customer bases.

Department of Human

Resources � Hospitals that scored either green

or yellow represent approximately 80 - 85 percent

of all licensed beds in the state and 86 percent

of the facilities. The number of green hospitals

went from 6 to 33, and the number of red

hospitals dropped from 51 to 26. Most hospitals

report that they expect to complete their

preparations in October, and all expect to be

ready before the end of the year.

� Most of the 26

hospitals currently scoring red are located in

counties that have other hospitals that did not

score red. Should the need arise, back-up

coverage is available in the same county. There

does not appear to be any concentrated area of

the state without hospitals that scored green or

yellow.

� The most

disturbing results in the healthcare industry are

from the End Stage Renal Disease Centers.

Although these dialysis centers were not included

in Senate Bill 230, they were surveyed and asked

to respond because of the critical service they

provide - blood filtering and cleaning three

times a week for patients whose kidneys have

failed. Eighty-one percent of the 161 centers in

Georgia have not responded to the survey. While

dialysis machines would not be affected, computer

failures could impact other company operations.

Georgia Emergency

Management Agency � The Georgia Emergency

Management Agency's surveys cover fire, police,

and sheriff's departments and 911 services.

GEMA's efforts have resulted in a significant

rise in both the response rate and scores for

these sectors. Ninety-five percent of the surveys

are in, and 94 percent of them scored green or

yellow. Only 6 percent of the GEMA surveys that

were returned received red scores.

Department of

Natural Resources � The Department of Natural

Resources surveys cover the utilities that supply

drinking water, the operators of wastewater

treatment facilities, facilities that hold

permits for air pollution equipment, entities

licensed to transport, store, or dispose of

hazardous and toxic waste and entities licensed

to handle radioactive materials. DNR again had

the highest response rate: 97 percent of its

surveys were returned, and 90 percent of them

scored green.

A.W.

"Bill" Dahlberg, president of The

Southern Company and Task Force Chairman, said

the public should recognize that surveys are

self-reported and are not audited or verified by

the scoring agency. He noted the validity of the

Task Force's conclusions is heavily dependent

upon the accuracy of the information provided.

"The next

three months will concentrate on the relatively

few reds to ensure that their small communities

will have back-up services," Dahlberg said.

"Procedures to sanction non-reporting

entities have been launched."

The full report,

survey responses, scores and summary reports will

be available to the public from the GeorgiaNet

site on the Internet. The web site address to

access this information is www.year2000ga.org.

Several changes have been made to this web site

since round one to make it easier for Georgia

citizens to access, on a county by county basis,

information about their essential service

providers. Within counties they can query down to

the individual provider level and view the actual

survey responses. A list of non-responding

entities is posted on the web site.

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