Months of concern about Y2K proved to be much ado about nothing Friday night, while Mother Nature delivered an unexpected gift. Fireworks blossomed through snowfall at midnight in Cortez’s Parque de Vida, sparking hope that the new year might not be as dry as the last few months of 1999.

Cortez residents had kept a watchful eye on the news for much of the day, as the year 2000 progressed from one time zone to the next. When predicted computer problems failed to materialize in New Zealand, Australia, China and Russia, local residents began to breathe easier. By late evening, few expected to experience significant problems, and the calm attitude of the majority proved justified.

The lights did not even as flicker at either midnight or 1 a.m. local time, when Y2K met the western power grid in California.

"We’re all connected, so if something had gone wrong, we could have had problems," said Dave Rightly, engineering manager for Empire Electric, but local utilities unanimously reported no outages.

"It came, it went, and nothing happened," said Cortez Police Chief Roy Lane. Law-enforcement agencies around the country had staffed for potential problems, but the tone after midnight was one of relief. The arrival of the new year brought the usual problems — some underage drinkers and impaired drivers — but Lane said the celebrations had been quieter than usual.

"There were relatively small crowds everywhere," he said. "I think people decided it was a good year to stay home." Officers had time to wish each other a happy New Year on the stroke of midnight.

The snowy weather slowed traffic, and although a few cars slid off the road, no major accidents were reported. The Colorado State Patrol dispatch said the only incident of note in Montezuma County involved a semi sliding off Highway 666 near Lewis around 7 a.m., but no serious injuries resulted.

The Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office and the Towaoc Police Department reported similar experiences. Towaoc Police Chief Dusty Whiting said his patrol operations had been busy, with 12 arrests that evening, mostly for intoxication and disorderly conduct. He estimated that a couple thousand people attended fireworks at the casino.

Whiting said the only hint of a Y2K problem came at about 9:30 Friday evening, when a Towaoc officer was called to take gasoline to a motorist stranded in a vehicle with a malfunctioning fuel gauge.

"The gauge said his tank was full, and when his fuel ran out and he pulled to the side of the road —he said he was looking at his watch to see whether it was midnight somewhere," Whiting chuckled.

Local banks focused on the holiday weekend rather than the Y2K problem, which they had spent several years addressing under federal requirements. ATMs and other computer systems had been tested and retested, said John Greenemeier, manager of Vectra Bank’s Main Street branch.

"My concerns all went away a few weeks ago when it became apparent that lots and lots of people worldwide were not getting out of the stock market."

There was no run on cash, and Greenemeier said he’d been more concerned that the bank’s computer system would be stressed by many customers asking for account information, but that didn’t happen either.

"It’s just like a payday Friday at the end of the month," Greenemeier said.

City Market, Cortez’s only grocery store, was jam-packed Friday night. The Wal-Mart Super Store, scheduled to open later this month, was a topic of much discussion as shoppers stood in long checkout lines.

Some shoppers appeared to be stocking up just in case; others were buying party provisions, and some may simply have had to wait until payday to buy their everyday groceries. At mid-day, though, City Market shoppers could still buy bottled water, batteries, emergency candles and canned foods — evidence that hoarding hadn’t created the problems some doomsayers had feared.

Party-goers in Dolores viewed the snow as a good omen, but at least one wondered why this millennium celebration was such a big deal.