The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The deadly floods in Venezuela. We get the latest from the Venezuelan ambassador and a Red Cross official. Elizabeth Farnsworth reports on Haiti five years after U.S. troops came to restore democracy. Gwen Ifill looks at how prepared we and our computers are for Y2K. Essayist Anne Taylor Fleming considers loss. And Robert Pinsky recites some Christmas poetry. It all follows our summary of the news this Tuesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Search teams in Venezuela continued to dig today for victims of mud slides and floods. The disaster wiped out whole neighborhoods, and more than 68,000 people were evacuated to shelters. Government officials said they can't be sure how many died, but they think it could reach 30,000. The United States and others were sending aid. At the Pentagon, Spokesman Kenneth Bacon spoke about the relief effort.

KENNETH BACON: Water is a crucial element, medical supplies, specifically medicines are also crucial. And we have been delivering large amounts of medicines, as well. I do know that the Venezuelans report that they've got plenty of doctors. That's not a problem. What they do need, though, is medicine, and tragically, they've also asked for large numbers of body bags, and we are supplying body bags by the thousands.

JIM LEHRER: We'll have more on the floods in Venezuela right after this News Summary tonight. U.S. officials today were investigating a second Algerian man arrested on the Canadian border. He was stopped late Sunday at Beecher Falls, Vermont. Border patrol agents said he was carrying a false Canadian passport. Trained dogs detected traces of explosives in his car but nothing more. Last week another Algerian man was arrested trying to enter Washington State from Canada. He's accused of smuggling bomb- making materials. The Federal Aviation Administration said today it's tightening airport security nationwide because of the arrest. The Canadian government sued R.J. Reynolds today over alleged tobacco smuggling. It says the cigarette maker and related companies set up an elaborate network to avoid paying Canadian taxes. Those taxes doubled in 1991. The lawsuit seeks $1 billion in damages. President Clinton announced new auto emissions standards today. They're aimed at cutting pollution from cars and trucks by 90 percent. For the first time, the rules will apply to sport utility vehicles and minivans. They'll be phased in starting with 2004 models. Mr. Clinton explained the need for the new rules at a Washington elementary school.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: A new car rolling off the assembly line today is 95 percent less polluting than the typical new car was back in 1970. But there are more than twice as many cars on the road today. And the number of miles driven each year has grown even faster. What's more, fully half the new vehicles sold today are sport utility vehicles, minivans and pickups, which produce three to five times as much pollution as the average passenger car.

JIM LEHRER: The Environmental Protection Agency will also direct oil refineries to reduce the sulfur in gasoline by 90 percent. The industry says that will raise the price of gasoline as much as 6 cents a gallon. A federal judge has ruled the government failed to keep track of $500 million for American Indians. The money in trust accounts comes from fees for grazing, logging and oil drilling on Indian land. The ruling today in Washington came in a class-action lawsuit. The judge said Interior and Treasury Department records are so incomplete, no one knows how much is in each account. He ordered the agencies to fix the problems. He'll rule later on how much they must pay in damages. The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged today. At a Washington meeting, Fed officials decided to keep the rate on overnight loans between banks at 5.5 percent. That rate had been raised three times this year. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now its on to: The Venezuela floods, Haiti five years later, a Y2K update, an Anne Taylor Fleming essay and some Christmas poetry.

FOCUS - KILLER FLOODS

JIM LEHRER: The deadly rains of Venezuela. We start with a report from James Mates of Independent Television News.

JAMES MATES: If there were any doubts about the destructive power of torrential floodwater, these amateur pictures taken at the height of the storm should dispel them. This was a modern town on Venezuela's coast, it houses for the most part well-built, with bricks and mortar, even reinforced concrete, but they were no match. Whole buildings, almost whole towns washed away. The number of victims now counted in the thousands. The sheer numbers of the homeless and the displaced who have been brought to the capital Caracas are overwhelming the city. This scene is one of many that's been taken over. It's a roof over their head, but there is precious little in terms of essential medical care. In the towns along Venezuela's Caribbean coast, towns that bore the brunt of the rains, it's only too clear that there's going to be no quick return home for these people. Aquila del a Marte came back to the town this morning to see if there was anything left of his home. All he found was rubble. You've lost everything?

VICTIM: Everything, everything. I lost everything.

JAMES MATES: It's more than three days now since the worst of the rain has ended, but still, water is pouring down through this town. Unbelievable as it may seem, there was no river here before, not even a road. These were all houses, simply ripped away by the torrents of water that poured down from those hillsides. It's thought so many people are still unaccounted for because they are either still buried underneath this mud or washed a few hundred yards further down this hill and straight out to sea. Lists of the missing still hang on the walls of municipal buildings, lists now thousands of names long. The priority, though, with the ever-growing threat of disease, is burying those known to have died. Hundreds of graves are being dug all over this region, simple memorials to the victims of the worst natural disaster to hit Venezuela in living memory.

JIM LEHRER: For more we go to Alfredo Toro Hardy, Venezuela's ambassador to the United States; and John Clizbe, vice president of disaster services for the American Red Cross, which is taking a leading role in the rescue and relief efforts in Venezuela. Mr. Ambassador, the figure, the death toll figure that is being used today is 30,000. Is that anywhere near a final or firm figure?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Well, I think it's very difficult to have a precise figure, probably it's somewhere around 10,000 people and 20,000 people. It's difficult to have the exact number due to the fact that entire villages were swept away, but due to the fact, too, that this is a transient area. It's in the near vicinity in Caracas. Many people go there to spend the day at the beach and the coastal area. So it's difficult to access how many people we have there.

JIM LEHRER: We have a map up there that you can see, can you not, Mr. Ambassador?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: It shows where Caracas is and the part there on the screen to the left is where the heavy part where the disaster was.

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Indeed, right, the part of the state where the heavy part of the disaster occurred, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Can you explain exactly what happened? We know it rained heavily, 12 inches of rain. But then what happened? What caused this tremendous onslaught of mud?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Well, especially when you talk about the Vargas state, you have to bear in mind that you are talking of very high mountains, and the coastal area, which is very narrow. So after three days of heavy rains, well, the mountain began to slip away and trees and rocks began to fell, and that caused the rainfalls. I think the bad weather was predictable, but the consequences of the bad weather, they were totally unpredictable.

JIM LEHRER: Has anything like that ever happened in that area before?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: No. This is the first time.

JIM LEHRER: So it isn't like a case in our country where they talk about a flood plain, people build on a flood plain and they can expect flooding. Nothing like this had ever happened before?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Indeed. It's the first time it happened, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Now, the homeless; in addition of course to the dead and injured, now, the injured, you have no figure on, do you, at this point?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Around 5,000 people.

JIM LEHRER: Known to be in hospitals or under treatment of some kind?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Indeed. The homeless are around 100,000 people.

JIM LEHRER: And those mostly are in Caracas, right?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Caracas and other important cities of the country, but mostly Caracas, indeed, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Clizbe, what is the focus now of the rescue effort? What's going on down there as we speak?

JOHN CLIZBE: Well, I think the most important part is getting people who are still in the affected areas out of those areas, and so the Venezuelan government and military are evacuating people as quickly as possible. Then there's the challenge of feeding and caring for those who have been evacuated, making certain that they have shelter and food and water and minimal clothing and that kind of thing. Right now we're very much in kind of the emergency rescue phase and caring for those who are able to come out of the affected areas.

JIM LEHRER: So you're still concentrating on saving live, it's not necessarily just finding the dead and burying them and taking care of the homeless. But there are still people at risk, is that right?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Most of the people who are... in isolated areas have been rescued. But you have still people who haven't been rescued. But in any case, 7,000 paratroopers have been sent to those areas, so as to take care of those people, to take care of feeding them and giving them protection and an organized life until the time that they could be rescued, which it is supposed to happen in the next hour.

JIM LEHRER: I see. Now, Mr. Clizbe, what is it that is coming in from the outside? What kind of help do the Venezuelans need, and is it being provided?

JOHN CLIZBE: Yes, I think it is beginning to be provided. For the American Red Cross, for example, we have been working very closely with the Venezuelan government and the Venezuelan Red Cross to access the needs that are there. And initially we sent in a planeload of about 50,000 pounds of sheets and blankets and water containers and hygiene kits. But now we're really trying to focus on ways in which we can take the contributions that are made to the American Red Cross and working with the Venezuelan Red Cross make most of the purchases right there in Venezuela. That addresses the needs obviously of the people that have been affected and it avoids some of the logistics changes of moving things in from the outside. But it also contributes to restimulating the economy of Venezuela.

JIM LEHRER: And that is there? In other words, Venezuela has enough food and shelter and equipment to take care of this, it's just a case of getting it allocated, is that right?

JOHN CLIZBE: For the most part. I think as we work with the government, certainly there will be some things that are identified that they would like to have brought in from the outside. But the first priority is to take advantage of the resources that are right there in Venezuela already and use the goods and the materials that exist there, purchase them and make them available to the people who need them.

JIM LEHRER: Anything you want to add to that, sir?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Well, you have to remember that we have to shelter and feed 100,000 people. In the immediate period perhaps we have the necessary supplies. But as time passes, we will be needing additional supplies, and that's why it is important to have international aid in this instance.

JIM LEHRER: Give us some perspective here. 100,000 people -- most of them have gone to Caracas. How big a city is Caracas, and what kind of facilities does it have?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Caracas is around six million people. Facilities, there are immediate facilities to shelter them, but of course, those are temporary facilities. We have to provide at least 50,000 new homes for the homeless, and that is a tremendous task for any country or for any government.

JIM LEHRER: What about damage to the infrastructure, roads, highways, that sort of thing?

JOHN CLIZBE: Well, that's been a real challenge in itself. That's why I think the government and the military was working so hard to get into some of these areas. They were inaccessible.

JIM LEHRER: By helicopter?

JOHN CLIZBE: They had to get in by helicopter, and even sometimes that was difficult. That part of the infrastructure, I think, has been very sorely tapped. There's going to be a major rebuilding effort that's going to have to occur.

JIM LEHRER: Help us understand how mange a rebuilding effort this would be, sir.

ALFRED TORO HARDY: We're talking about $20 billion in loss, probably, and up to five years in rebuilding effort.

JIM LEHRER: And like what?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: We are talking about bridges. We are talking about roads, the whole coastal roads, which was very important, coastal... which was a very important road, was totally destroyed. We are talking of the - airport, which is the most important port in the country, which has suffered huge losses, huge damages. We are talking of huge infrastructure losses, but at the same time, we are talking about at least 50,000 houses that have within destroyed.

JIM LEHRER: The Red Cross is in the disaster business. I was reading comparisons today, and it said, if, for instance, the 30,000 death toll held, and ambassador you have said that it probably will not be that high, but whatever it is, this is nearly or pretty close to or maybe surpassed being the largest disaster of this kind in Latin America. Is that correct?

JOHN CLIZBE: I believe so, yes. Hurricane Mitch a couple years ago was devastating in Central America, but the number of deaths were not as great as are projected as possible in Venezuela.

JIM LEHRER: Can you help us understand how this compares, just in terms of a disaster relief operation?

JOHN CLIZBE: Well, I think what's particularly devastating about this is that it has all the attributes of an earthquake or a tornado with a tremendous immediate devastation and then the long-term affect effects of floods and water damage everywhere. And so it's a combination of the worst of two worlds. It just encompasses everything you don't want to have happen when it a disaster strikes. It is unusually complex and devastating for the people there.

JIM LEHRER: Do you feel from your government's point of view that everything is working, everything is being done that can be done at this point and that the Red Cross, the United States government, and other governments of Latin America and of the Americas are helping you out and doing what needs to be done?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Undoubtedly. We have been receiving very good help from the Red Cross, from the Venezuelan Red Cross, from the American Red Cross, international one. The American government has been very helpful. They have provided several helicopters, airplanes and a good deal of help. And at least 25 governments are helping in this effort. And we are very grateful for all those... all the help we are receiving at the time, yes.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Mr. Clizbe, you have a number and an address, do you not, that we have put up on the screen. If anybody wants to help, there it, is the International Response Fund. That's your organization, right, the Red Cross?

JOHN CLIZBE: Yes.

JIM LEHRER: Let me read this: Post Office Box 37243, Washington, D.C., 20013. If you want to call, it's 1-800-HELP NOW, and if you want to do it in Spanish, it's 1-800-257-7575. I'll leave that up for a count of one, two, three. Gentlemen... yes?

ALFRED TORO HARDY: I should add to that, to the relief of the Venezuelan floods, which is part of the...

JIM LEHRER: Right. In other words, when they call, they should say that, is that what you mean -- for the relief of the Venezuelans. Gentlemen, thank you both very much for being with us tonight. And our best to you both.

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Thank you.

JIM LEHRER: Particularly to you Mr. Ambassador.

ALFRED TORO HARDY: Thank you.

JOHN CLIZBE: Certainly. Thank you.

FOCUS - NATION BUILDING

JIM LEHRER: 20,000 U.S. troops landed in Haiti five years ago to restore democracy. The last of those troops are leaving Haiti now.

Elizabeth Farnsworth reports on what the five years have meant for Haiti.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Earlier this month, on Port- au-Prince Bay where Haiti's capital city sits like a damaged jewel, an American naval construction brigade loaded equipment to go home. These are some of the last U.S. troops in Haiti, remnants of an operation that has, over the past five years, claimed the energies of tens of thousands of American soldiers and civilians and cost taxpayers more than $2 billion. A few combat troops remain in Haiti for guard duty. The rest left in 1996 when multinational U.N. forces took over peacekeeping. Since then about 400 or so American soldiers have been doing mainly humanitarian work here. The commander is Lieutenant Colonel Ray Duncan.

LT. COL. RAY DUNCAN: We've provided medical assistance to over 130,000 patients, and I think we've drilled 170 wells. And we've put water in communities where people didn't have water before, so instead of walking miles to get to a well or get to a source of water, they've got water near their homes. When you can say that people have water for the very first time in their lives, that's pretty amazing. And they've got classrooms and they've got roads to drive on that just didn't exist before.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Not far from this port, members of a U.S. Air Force transportable hospital unit were treating patients on the grounds of Haiti's Coast Guard headquarters. All these soldiers will be gone by the end of January. Other U.S. units will rotate in after that to do similar work, but they won't be stationed in Haiti. This kind of free medical care is rare in this country, the poorest in the hemisphere. More than one-quarter of all Haitian kids are malnourished. About 7 percent of Haitian babies die before reaching age five. Lieutenant David Eaton, a physician assistant, said he feels he's putting a band-aid over a gushing wound.

1ST LT. DAVID EATON: It's nice that we can help people, but it's also demoralizing at times because we see things we know we could take care of in the states, but we don't have the supplies or the facility to do it. There was a small baby here a few months ago that was only a couple of weeks old. She had at least three different heart defects that required a transplant, and to have to sit here and tell that young lady that her baby is not going to live -- the thing that saddened me the most is I walked out of the gate to wish her well, and three small youths came up and pushed her down and took her medicine from her. And our policy here is we're not allowed to intervene in any Haitian-Haitian relationships. And the only thing you could do was pick her up, try to clean the mud off her baby, help her back up, and get her some more medicine.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: As Lieutenant Eaton found, Haiti remains a very dangerous place. About half the U.S. troops here provide security for the rest. From the beginning, U.S. policymakers, concerned about American casualties, have sharply limited what troops here could do to confront random organized violence. Partly as a result, a hot debate is under way in Haiti now over whether the U.S. intervention has improved the lives and security of ordinary Haitians at all. American leaders had said restoring democracy and hence security was their key goal. In 1991, after democratic elections, Jean Bertrand Aristide, a Catholic priest wildly popular with the poor, was sworn in as president of Haiti. The military overthrew him seven months later in a coup funded partly by wealthy Haitian business leaders. In the next three years, around 5,000 people were killed, many of them Aristide's supporters. Thousands more fled in leaky boats, trying desperately to get to the United States. The NewsHour got caught up in this, too. Five years ago, just before U.S. troops landed here, a NewsHour crew and I got a taste of the then ruling military Junta's repression. We were deported at gunpoint as part of a crackdown on local and foreign press. Our Haitian interpreter and assistant were briefly imprisoned. Since then other NewsHour teams have come to cover the U.S. intervention and President Aristide's return. On this trip five years later, we wanted to know what, if anything, had changed. We found a place full of contradictions. After being reinstated by American troops, Aristide disbanded the army and replaced it with a new police force, but people still complain about violence. Millions of dollars of aid have poured in, but people still say they don't have enough to eat.

LUCIEN ELVIUS: [speaking through interpreter] In theory, according to my rights, I should be able to eat three meals a day. But I only eat once. I don't have money to send my kids to school; if my child is sick, I can't take care of him. There is no security. You're robbed from your pocket. Your throat is slit. There is no security in the streets.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And yet some data indicates poor Haitians haven't lost hope like they did in the early 1990's, after President Aristide was overthrown. For example, fewer people are fleeing by sea. About 400 Haitians were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard this year, as opposed to 1,400 last year and tens of thousands in the early 90's. Frantz Charles was one of those who left by boat. He fled just after the 1991 military coup. The U.S. Coast Guard picked him up, took him to Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, and six months later sent him back to Haiti.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Since 1992, a lot has happened. What has happened to your life since 1992? Has anything improved?

FRANTZ CHARLES: [speaking through interpreter] There's nothing that's changed in my life. I live basically the same way I lived then.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Did you have hope that things would change when Aristide came back, for example?

FRANTZ CHARLES: [speaking through interpreter] Absolutely. And we still have hope that things are going to change.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: If somebody offers you a boat right now, would you take off again?

FRANTZ CHARLES: Oh, of course. [speaking through interpreter] Of course I would go.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Frantz Charles and most of his friends have no regular jobs. They say they barely survive on the few cents they make every couple of days from a private program that pays people who help clean up garbage. They still have faith in Aristide, whom they regard as the power behind the scenes here. Aristide served out his term and, restricted by the constitution from running again, oversaw elections and turned over power in 1996 to a close associate, the current president, Rene Preval. Aristide is expected to run for president again in elections scheduled for late next year.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In the presidential election, who will you vote for?

FRANTZ CHARLES: [speaking through interpreter] Aristide.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why?

FRANTZ CHARLES: [speaking through interpreter] Because he's done nothing bad to us.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Not all of Aristide's former supporters have remained loyal. Gerard Pierre-Charles, an economist, and his wife, helped Aristide found the Lavalas Political Party in 1990. But Pierre-Charles said he became disillusioned when Aristide, after returning from exile in the United States, gave up being a priest, got married, and also got rich.

GERARD PIERRE-CHARLES: [speaking through interpreter] Without doubt, the nectar of sweetness of the alcohol of power made him lose his head. It is a very painful phenomenon for all of us that were very close to Aristide to distance ourselves from him because the distance between the leader that emerged in the early days, and the head of the state who failed to satisfy expectations of the people who were hoping for so much is very great.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Aristide has remained off limits to the foreign press over the past year, working behind high walls at his large home, or at his non-profit foundation, both in Tabarre, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. On this day, members of his political party, potential candidates for the March legislative elections, waited outside the foundation for the former president's decision on who would run. At the end of the afternoon, at the end of the afternoon, children here for special classes boarded buses for home. Aristide told correspondent Guy Gendron of Radio Canada this month that literacy and other programs sponsored by the foundation account for his continuing popularity.

JEAN BERTRAND ARISTIDE: One thing is to play the game as a politician. Another thing is to assume one's responsibility and serve in or outside government. Here we serve the people. That's why we have a community store where people can buy what they need at a low price. That's why we have a credit union that gives micro credit loans.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: When asked whether he was the richest man in Haiti, as some people claim, Aristide responded...

JEAN BERTRAND ARISTIDE: [speaking through interpreter] That is false. If you're speaking about wealth of the heart, it's true. If you're talking about the wealth of experience, it's true. But if you're speaking about money, that's absolutely false.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And on whether he's going to run for president, he answered... that's not impossible. The March legislative election looms large here partly because parliament, which should be in session in this building, has been closed since January. President Preval dismissed it when he and the opposition couldn't agree on a schedule for constitutionally required elections. U.S. Ambassador Timothy Carney, who has been here since March 1997, is leaving his post this month.

TIMOTHY CARNEY: Failure to have the elections in March will mean continuing lack of a constitutional government until whenever the elections are held. This creates suspicion, apathy on the part of some of the electorate, and adds to a fear that democracy just isn't worth it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: It's been five years and $2 billion and an enormous effort from many Americans here. What do you think has been accomplished?

TIMOTHY CARNEY: What we accomplished was to return Jean Bertrand Aristide to his presidential office here in Haiti. He was an elected president. Now, it's also clear that our expectations were too high, and that our hopes probably led our analyses. And as a result, there's been a certain frustration and even disappointment at the results over the last five years.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: How would you describe those results?

TIMOTHY CARNEY: The key result is there really is a process towards democracy. It isn't democracy yet. It would be foolish to argue that. But what you have are a set of freedoms and rights that are increasingly being established. One of them is freedom of the press.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So you wouldn't agree with those who say, as Senator McCain said on our show, that things are arguably worse in Haiti than before?

TIMOTHY CARNEY: Some things are not arguably but actually worse than before. For example, in any authoritarian state, the crime rate is usually fairly low. Well, in Haiti, while the crime rate in absolute terms is perhaps not so high, certainly not comparable with some of his Caribbean neighbors, the fact is the trend is alarming to those who have enjoyed the protection of an authoritarian armed force. And the economy is worse because the population is increasing, and there isn't enough investment either from Haitians who have money or from the United States and other countries to give the jobs that are needed.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Ambassador Colin Granderson from the Caribbean island nation Trinidad and Tobago has directed a human rights monitoring mission sponsored by the U.N. and the organization of American states here since 1993. He agrees that expectations were too high and much remains to be done.

AMBASSADOR COLIN GRANDERSON: But I think what's important is the fact, with the disappearance of the army, that political space exists, perhaps for the first time, and the political crisis can for the first time have to be managed by politicians and not by generals and persons in uniforms. It's a brand-new experience in Haiti. If you're trying to build institutions, institutions aren't built overnight. Institutions are not bricks and mortar. Institutions are people. And people don't change overnight. Attitudes don't change overnight. And it's a long, slow, difficult process. I very often use the metaphor of a ship sailing against the wind. You can't go in a straight line. You have to tack. Other times you have the impression you're going backwards. You need to have the faith, I think. We have seen qualitative changes in Haiti.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Some of the faith and many of the fears of the current moment center on Haiti's new police force, which has been built from scratch since 1995 to replace the disbanded military.

JIM LEHRER: That police force will be the subject of Elizabeth's next report on Haiti. Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: A Y2K update, an Anne Taylor Fleming essay and some Christmas poetry.

UPDATE - 2000 - MILLENNIUM BUG

JIM LEHRER: Gwen Ifill has our Y2K story.

GWEN IFILL: With holiday celebrations just around the corner, federal officials are making lists-- and checking them twice-- to make sure the Y2K computer bug doesn't crash the party. Computers at the nation's air traffic, Social Security, and banking systems have all been federally certified Y2K ready. And Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, speaking at a Washington power company last week, said the nation's utilities are prepared, too.

BILL RICHARDSON: I am very happy to report that 100 percent of the nation's providers of electric power are now reporting that they are Y2K 100 percent ready.

GWEN IFILL: Just three years ago, the utilities, scores of other companies, and federal agencies were not so sure they'd be celebrating. In 1997, only 21 percent of the federal government's vital computer systems were free of the so- called millennium bug. $100 billion later, private companies say they are fully prepared, and federal officials say they're 99 percent ready, too. The Y2K glitch is found in computer software and chips that may misidentify dates ending in "00" to read the year 1900 instead. Experts have warned such a mistake could cause everything from problems with automatic teller machines and health care devices, to outright breakdowns in shipping and computers abroad. Governments and private companies are taking little for granted. They are concerned Y2K bugs could still lurk undetected in computer systems. Utilities are keeping extra reserves on hand just in case there is an unexpected loss of power, and local governments are stocking up on supplies, too, even beefing up police protection to guard against any havoc created by Y2K computer breakdowns. NASA, which says its computers are Y2K ready, still plans to get the space shuttle Discovery home by the New Year, just in case. But some warn not enough is being done. Today critics of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission urged the government to shut down nuclear plants on New Year's Eve.

JAMES RICCIO: If the NRC has rules requiring that reactors shut down when a hurricane approaches, doesn't it make sense to place reactors in the same condition to face the technological hurricane that could be caused by the Y2K computer bug?

GWEN IFILL: In Washington, federal officials will be monitoring nuclear plants and other Y2K concerns at a $50 million command center near the White House. The center will act as an information clearinghouse for federal agencies, private industry groups, and for news of Y2K developments abroad.

GWEN IFILL: Joining me now is James Bond, director of energy, mining and telecommunications at the World Bank; Republican Robert Bennett of Utah, chairman of the Senate's Special Committee on the year 2000 technology problem; and Lou Marcoccio, research director at the Gartner Group, a business and technology consulting firm. Welcome, gentlemen.

Senator Bennett, ten days from now is d-day for lack of a better term. What's going to happen?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: No one knows. We have never lived through a thing like this before. It may well be that all of the preparation that you talked about in your opening will pay off the way we hope it will. And absolutely nothing bad will happen. And if that is indeed the case, a lot of folks will say, gee, you wasted all our time and money. Look, there was no problem. But I think more likely there will be a series of random incidents that will pop up in places that we didn't recognize were not compliant. We'll only find out after the fact. My expectation is that these will not be connected. They will not cascade into a building kind of problem or disaster, and that they'll be fixed relatively quickly. But as I say, we've never had an experience like this before, and we're going the find out.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Marcoccio, the federal government is feeling awfully confident that they have their Y2K problems under control. What about local governments and 911 emergency services and things like that?

LOU MARCOCCIO: Well, we find that local cities and towns, especially here in the U.S., have addressed the problem relatively well. There still are smaller towns that have not addressed the problem or have finished. Many of them are planning to finish on December 31, actually. But the majority of them have finished and have finished on time. And their initial focus has been emergency services, 911 and so forth. So we feel pretty confident that those services and most critical services in those areas are going to be --basically make it through this pretty well.

GWEN IFILL: And banks, ATM's, should we be taking a lot of money out of our accounts this weekend?

LOU MARCOCCIO: We don't recommend taking any money out of banks. The banking industry has done actually far better than any industry on addressing the problem overall. Things like ATM's and so forth, the initial threat that people had thought a couple years ago was that we may have some power outages that may cause us not to be able to address ATM's and so forth. But even power utilities and so forth have addressed this problem exceptionally well. And we don't believe that's a threat. We don't believe people need to take money or withdraw money from the bank at all.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Bond, let's assume within our borders of the United States and many developed countries this problem has been addressed. What about in other countries abroad that we obviously will have interaction with or who will have their own concerns, who are maybe not as computer efficient or at least not as technologically advanced as the United States. Are there problems which are likely to be brewing there?

JAMES BOND: Gwen, there's an enormous range of these countries, from very, very poor countries to countries that are really quite advanced in terms of computer systems. And within each of these countries, we get an enormous range of each industry. And so I think it's very difficult for us to single out any given country, but certainly there are likely to be some sectors in some countries that might have problems and other sectors more likely won't.

GWEN IFILL: Tell us what you mean by sectors.

JAMES BOND: What I mean are industries. I agree with Lou that generally the financial industry, banks, ATM's, transfer of financial resources have pretty much dealt with the problem. I think where we're likely to come across glitches might be, for example, in some of the power, electric power industries, possibly health care, the health care industry. Here the progress has been much more spotty, much less complete.

GWEN IFILL: Senator Bennett, if you can pick up on that point, obviously the health care industry is a major one. Would we want to be in the hospital for elective surgery on New Year's Eve?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: Well, I've told everybody to avoid elective surgery on New Year's Eve. But frankly, it depends on which hospital. There are... The vast majority of American hospitals seem to be fully compliant. Many, many of them are now operating on software that has been completely rewritten and installed just for the Y2K problem. The difficulty with the health care industry is that it is so fragmented. There are so many small clinics or individual doctor's offices that it becomes almost impossible to get a complete picture of everything that's going on. But if you happen to be in an emergency situation where it's necessary for you to be in a hospital, and you are in a major hospital connected with one of the larger chains, the chances are overwhelming that you're going to be just fine. And while statistically we would expect some of the inner-city hospitals and rural hospitals to have the biggest problem, mainly because they have the least money, I've checked with some rural hospitals here in my home state of Utah, for example, and they're just fine, as well. It becomes a factor of the preparedness of the hospital administrator and how diligent he or she may be in getting things under control.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Marcoccio, it seems one of the problems we're facing here is that we don't know what we don't know. How do you gauge public reactions to an event that you can't gauge what the response might be, what the actual event might be?

LOU MARCOCCIO: Well, we've been surveying some of the general public on a regular basis to find out what their plans are for January 1 or just prior to. Are they going to go out and buy additional food; are they going to withdraw money. Are they going to take other extreme actions? We have seen a softening over the past six months in general public perception, and people are much more informed of the problem. People seem to feel more comfortable in general. We're hopeful that no major event will cause any kind of increase in anxiety, whether it be some kind of security issue or some kind of major failure in a company that gets made public prior to. One of the things that we need to understand is that most computer failures in most companies ran aren't really going to be made public. This kind of information is pretty much going to stay inside a company, unless it affects the general public. So things like government services and transportation and other areas that do affect the general public, those things will be more obvious and more visible. And if any problems arise and are made generally aware to the general public, then this could increase some level of anxiety.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Bond, we are all focused on January 1 as being "the" date. But in reality, will this my out over days, weeks, months?

JAMES BOND: Yeah, absolutely. Certainly January 1 is a key date, but for a start, these kinds of problems might occur over a period starting January 1. And, in fact, just knowing what's going on, some of the results will only come through in things like trade statistics on imports and exports, on the GDP numbers, numbers of economic growth. We may not learn about some of the glitches from a macroeconomic perspective for three months or even six months. So it will take a while for us actually to see the results as they feed through into the general economy.

GWEN IFILL: You saw in our taped piece a reference to nuclear concerns. Do you think that's legitimate at all?

JAMES BOND: I can't speak really for the nuclear side. But on the electric power side, some of the World Bank's clients, the countries where we work, there are clearly some of the power plants that do have a control systems with embedded chips. And no one really knows how these chips will react. So even if only one out of 1,000 or one out of 10,000 reacts in a way which is unpredictable, this could have an effect on the electric power plant itself.

GWEN IFILL: Senator Bennett, is that a legitimate fear?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: It is. The testing that has been done, however, demonstrates that our earlier estimates, which was... which showed that the embedded chip problem would be the biggest problem, were probably wrong -- that the embedded chip problem now appears to be much less than we originally thought when we got into this. And as to the comment that was on your tape, I don't think a nuclear plant is any more dangerous than any other kind of plant with respect to the Y2K problem. Ironically, because we have not been building nuclear plants in this country in recent years, Europe is almost entirely dependent on nuclear power; we in this country for whatever reason have decided we don't like nuclear power, most of the nuclear plants therefore are quite old and therefore they are not as computerized and automated as some of the newer plants. And that means that the Y2K fix in those plants can take place a little easier than one that is more heavily computerized. Now, nuclear is frankly the first place I went when I got concerned about the power grid for all of the reasons that the individual on your tape would raise. But frankly, I don't think there has to be any specific singling out of a nuclear plant because of Y2K concerns.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Marcoccio, if we are no longer as concerned here in the United States about this problem, is there still a potential at all for a global crisis?

LOU MARCOCCIO: Well, as far as the global status or issues, like my associate from the World Bank mentioned, we do have some countries and some industry sectors in some countries that just aren't as prepared. But, you know, in our analysis, we find that the countries that are least prepared are also countries thatdeal with significant power outages every day, significant telephone service outages every day and so forth. So, yes, they may deal with some additional outages perhaps in some of those areas, but they're actually better suited for dealing with some of those issues. For instance, if we were to deal with a significant power outage, which is not going to happen, but if we had a significant outage in the U.S., for several days at a time, this would be devastating to most of our businesses and our economy. But if that was to happen in a country that was to have four or five power outages that lasted an hour or two or three hours a day, several times in a day, and it was to cause a few more hours without power, it would be relatively low impact.

GWEN IFILL: Okay. So here's a real test, Senator Bennett, where are you going to with on New Year's Eve?

SEN. ROBERT BENNETT: I'm going to be in the Utah command center with Governor Levitt, the governor of Utah. We have our own version of that command, international command center that you talked about earlier in Washington here in Utah, and we'll be receiving information from all over the state as to what's happening with respect to Y2K here. Our expectation is that about 2:00 in the morning Mountain Standard Time we'll be all wrapped up and I can go home.

GWEN IFILL: Mr. Bond, I'll be meeting you at the ATM machine. Thank you gentlemen all very much.

ESSAY- WHOSE CHOICE?

JIM LEHRER: Now, essayist Anne Taylor Fleming has some thoughts about coming to terms with death.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: I remember back in junior high school when the first of my friends lost a father to a heart attack. It was so weird, so scary. We didn't talk about it. We didn't know what to say. It was way too early, our friend marked by some premature loss we could hardly imagine. We tried to be extra nice to her and go about our own young lives. That worked for quite a long time. Then came Vietnam, arguably the central drama of our generation. And yet again, most of us didn't personally know anyone who died there.

SOLDIER: Bring me a stethoscope.

SOLDIER: Right there, right there.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: We knew of them and were somehow connected to their deaths, horrified by them, but they, too, were foreign in a sense. Death happened over there, out of sight, to soldiers in war or bad guys on TV. It didn't happen to people you knew and loved. Somewhere in there, in the late 1960's, amid all the anti-war, pro-love bacchanalia, a startling book appeared that we all read for some class or another called "On Death and Dying," by Elizabeth Kubler Ross, the first close-up analysis of how people reckon with death. The stages-- denial, anger, depression, acceptance-- crept into our vocabulary of death even as we were yet to have it hit home. Then the gray crept into our hair and the first of our own parents began to die. They didn't just die, they lingered, while we lingered in hospital corridors, talking to specialists, trying to figure out the answers to all the old and new questions. What is the quality of life mean? When should we stop the extraordinary measures? How does my mother or father want to die? And who is responsible? Death became a perverse friend, a destination, a hospital waiting room full of stale coffee. It didn't just come and go. You got intimate with it, hung out with it in those antiseptic rooms for days, for weeks, and months at a time, tethered to the dying of your mother or your father as much as they were tethered to their machines. Some parents were open about it- - good-byes could be said, final jokes shared, life-sustaining therapies stopped, a parent brought home to die in his or her own bed. In other cases, there was a flailing denial till the end, leaving all and sundry bereft-- unresolved, unfarewelled, angry-- even years later, unfinished. At the same time, some of our own friends began to die, or to be dying, undergoing painful, invasive therapies, losing hair, clinging to life because of AIDS or breast cancer, their long struggles chronicled in print and on stage and on movie and TV screens. From "Ghost" to "Angels in America" -

ACTOR: The kiss of the angel of death. ...

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: -- To "N.Y.P.D. Blue," death became younger. We began to see it in the mirror. We tried to outrun it, out jog it, cheat it by swallowing vitamins and cholesterol busters, by embracing angels and ghosts, figments from the afterlife-- death as a pause button on the remote control.

VIDEO CLIP: I, Thomas Youk, the undersigned -

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: 30 years after Elizabeth Kubler Ross' book put the subject on the table, we finally seem to be taking it up in earnest, our hand forced by our own aging and by the provocations of dr. Jack Kevorkian, the macabre angel of mercy/publicity hound who is riding the death trend to ghoulish glory, going so far as to actually inject one terminally ill man with lethal drugs himself. Kevorkian pushed the metaphor, forced the question: How do you want to die, and whose decision is it? The answer is simple, complicated, of course, by all the new life-prolonging machines, but still essentially simple. It's most of all the decision of people who, at this moment, are themselves dying, near death now, even as another night dawns, the first stars visible through the hospital window. And it's the decision of those huddled there with them, seeing the night for a minute out the window, turning back, locating the strength to untether, now finally to let go. It's time. It's your decision. It's my decision. How well can we do it? I'm Anne Taylor Fleming.

RECAP

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: Again, the major stories of this Tuesday: Disaster workers in Venezuela continued to search for bodies buried under tons of mud; the Canadian government sued R.J. Reynolds over alleged tobacco smuggling; and President Clinton announced new emissions standards aimed at cutting auto pollution by 90 percent.

FINALLY - HISTORY OF MY HEART

JIM LEHRER: And before we go tonight, a Christmastime fantasy from NewsHour contributor Robert Pinsky, the poet laureate of the united states.

ROBERT PINSKY: Families often have their myths and legends, and many of them surround holidays like Christmas. Sometimes no one is quite sure how much truth and how much invention goes into these stories, but they become valuable as works of art. I begin my poem "History of my Heart" with a Christmastime story of my own family: Here's the passage from "History of my Heart." One Christmastime, Fats Waller in a fur coat rolled beaming from a taxicab with two pretty girls each at an arm as he led them in a thick, downy snowfall across 34th street into the busy crowd shopping at Macy's: Perfume, holly, snowflake displays. Chimes rang for change. In toys, where my mother worked over her school vacation, the crowd swelled and stood filling the aisles, whispered at the fringes, listening to the sounds of the large, gorgeously dressed man, his smile bemused and exalted, lips boom-booming a bold bass line as he improvised on an expensive, tinkly piano the size of a lady's jewel box or a wedding cake. She put into my heart this scene from the romance of joy co-authored by her and the movies, like her others-- my father making the winning basket at the buzzer, and punching the enraged gambler who came onto the court -- the brilliant black and white of the movies, texture of wet snowy fur, the taxi's windshield, piano keys, reflections that slid over the thick brass baton that worked the elevator. It could have happened. I think my mother said it did. In any case, I wish you a holiday season of joy on a legendary scale.

JIM LEHRER: And we'll see you on line, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer.