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With 12 months to go until Year 2000 (Y2K), the prospect that most computers won't be able to read the new century's date has caused a widening pool of anxiety, plus forecasts of economic ruin and social disruption.

AT&T says it will spend $900 million before January l, 2000, to fend off problems. Motorola worries that its police and fire systems could malfunction, with disastrous.results for the public. Deutsche Bank Securities sees aTOVo chance of a recession because of "a glitch in the flow of information." The U.S. Coast Guard says shipboard systems.and port facilities could malfunction causing far-reaching problems, including mishandling of hazardous materials.

Samsonite spent $10 million to correct the Y2K problem before it happened. Despite the efforts of 20 outside consultants, it didn't work. Trucks went to the wrong stores, forklifts to the wrong locations in the warehouse. In six months they lost $4 million in profits and $10 million in sales.

Yet the chairman of President Clinton's Year 2000 commission says he is so confident that there won't be major problems that he has booked a December 3I, 1999, flight to New York with a next day return to Washington, D.C. Despite this, reports are rife that most state and federal government bureaucracies are woefully underprepared for Y2K.

Companies big and small that are ready for 2000 (or think or hope they are) are concerned that their suppliers will not be able to function normally, thus involving them in the problem. Just-in-time deliveries, which can be twitchy in the best of circumstances, will send trouble up and down the chain if disruptions occur. The Union Pacific fiasco has already demonstrated what can happen in distribution when a key transportation factor grinds to a halt.

The good news is most everyone is now aware of the problem and a year separates us from the new millennium. The bad news will come all too surely to those who underestimate the situation.