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1999 began one momentous IT initiative, the launch of LouisvilleWater.com, and ended with another- Y2K.
LouisvilleWater.com launched May 3, 1999 to coincide with National Drinking Water Week. Staff in Public Information (now Strategic Communications and Marketing) and IT worked for months to create the website and its contents. The new site was a feast for the eyes. It was described as featuring “the jazzy colors and graphics of Louisville Water’s Pure Tap campaign and other fun animated elements – a Pure Tap bottle dripped from a tap, words rippled like water when the cursor moved over them, and photos appeared in puddles.” Community Relations Specialist Barbara Crow was quoted as saying the “website is to provide a tool that is information and appealing to users.”
Tabs at the top of the page featured the sections: About Us, Water Quality Report, Water Works, Kid’s Zone FAQ, Contact us, and links. A “fun zone” for children went live in October of the same year. This educational site offered a variety of games, experiments, and quizzes and Tapper! Our beloved mascot made his debut with Tapper’s Fun Zone.
Children helped design the original Tapper, providing input on his shoes, the crazy hair and even the color of Tapper’s shoestrings. Of course, Tapper has “grown up” along with the website and now looks like a glass of water rather than a plastic bottle.
The “big picture” plan was that, “Eventually, customers may even be able to access their account information and pay their bills via our website.”
Y2K fears bubbled up by programmers about the consequences of using a two-digit system to designate years instead of four. Concerns increased that when computers rolled over to the year 2000, they would not be able to distinguish the difference between it and 1900. As Copilot AI puts it, “This potential glitch threatened widespread disruption in industries reliant on computer technologies, from banking to utilities.”
Work began years earlier in 1997 for a team of Louisville Water employees who explored solutions to the possible problems. Crow said there were “lots of high-level meetings” with then-President John Huber, VP of Water Quality Steve Hubbs, Jim Smith who led operations at the treatment plant, along with risk management and IT. They examined nearly every bit of code, every computer, and every piece of automated equipment in the company. Potential issues were identified and fixed.
As an extra precaution, employees tested the company’s emergency generators. The biggest concern was losing operations at the filter plant and maintaining water quality. Briefings were held with Mayor Abramson and emergency management people to keep them in the loop. Then came THE day- December 31, 1999. Barbara Crow recalls, “I was stationed at the Crescent Hill plant with several reporters waiting for midnight to strike and ‘all hell to break loose.’ Nothing happened and we all went home!”
An anticlimactic ending to be sure, but it took scores of people and nearly three years of work to make sure nothing happened.
So, as we get ready to ring in 2025, we’re raising a glass of Louisville Pure Tap® to how much we’ve evolved in 25 years to produce and deliver high-quality drinking water!
