Leap day arrives with few problems

From CNN Correspondent Kate Snow

February 29, 2000
Web posted at: 10:55 a.m. EST (1555 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Fears that computers might crash on this "extra day" of the year are fading, much as worries over a major Y2K crisis did last month.

Most Y2K experts never expected any major problems today, but precautions were taken just the same.

The Y2K center in Washington was open for business again Tuesday, monitoring the date rollover. A staff of about 75 government workers was keeping of progress and any signs of trouble.

So far, there are no signs of any major problem.

The concern about Leap Day comes because programmers may not have told computers that a leap year was coming in 2000. Most years divisible by 100 are not leap years. But any year divisible by 400 does have an extra day added -- thus, 2000 is a leap year. If computer programmers didn't remember those rules, a computer may not recognize Feb. 29.

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But most government agencies and companies took care of the "leap day" issue when they were fixing the Y2K bug.

The head of the President's Council on Y2K Conversion, John Koskinen, said that's exactly why they don't believe many problems would develop Tuesday.

"The standard routine for testing for Year 2000 compliance included testing the ability of systems to handle Feb. 28, Feb. 29 and March 1st, and many tests went ahead and tested the end of the year 2000, Dec. 31, to ensure that the program had the requisite 366 days in the calendar year," Koskinen said.

The U.S. Y2K Center will check in about every 8 hours with eleven other nations -- members of the Y2K Steering Committee that initially formed to deal with the Jan. 1 first rollover.

On a conference call with those nations Monday night, Japanese officials confirmed that they had some minor problems within their weather agency. New Zealand also reported problems with "a handful" of merchants who were unable to print out reports of credit card transactions made during the day of Feb. 29.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported no problems with the transition to Greenwich Mean Time at 7pm EST Monday. Air traffic worldwide is coordinated using GMT.

A group representing the nation's power industry also reported no problems.

If all goes well, the Y2K Center will close up shop Wednesday. The office will likely be dismantled by the end of March.

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