If people buy into it being a problem, they have to buy into it completely. Sayers expects the first rumblings of a global Y2K panic to begin as early as January, with families across the country buying large quantities of food for long-term storage, water storage systems, and generators. As he sees it, people will begin moving assets out of the stock market and into hard currency, gold, and other precious metals. Land values in rural areas will begin to skyrocket, as families flee the cities in search of hideaways. In Auckland, New Zealand, the celebration comes to an abrupt end as the city is bathed in darkness.
Television screens showing the festivities in Sydney, Australia, suddenly go blank.
In Toyko, Beijing, Tehran, and Moscow, the stroke of midnight is accompanied by silence, darkness, and confusion. In Paris, the city of light disappears behind the dark veil enveloping the globe. As the millennium races across the Atlantic, a rising tide of panic overtakes the United States. Alarm creeps into the voices of television anchormen. Civil defense sirens puncture the night sky.