Y2K is the possibility of power failure. So you need a plan. Officials on each campus, for example, need to ensure buildings are protected during an extended power failure, especially since the problem is most likely to occur in the depth of winter. At Bloomington, the solution was to add an emergency generator in the power plant, allowing one of the campus's boilers to remain operational. This solution would provide enough steam to protect the system pipes from being damaged and protect the integrity of the buildings themselves, Hewetson says.
Security is also a focus at each campus.
While the winter break builds in a natural buffer to resolve Y2K problems that occur around Jan. 1, it also presents its challenges. If there is a long-term outage, people might try to get in and steal computers and other things. Should power be off for an extended period of time, all buildings would be officially closed. Even so, contingency plans are being made to try to protect all department and faculty needs, such as research projects that cannot be shut down. On the Bloomington campus, for example, one building will be designated a safe haven for research animals so they are protected.