INDIANANAPOLIS (WISH) — “That Marcus Bailey, always up to no good!” said…Marcus Bailey?

Indeed, the above comment punctuated a nostalgic (and surprising) exchange on- and-off-air, during WISH-TV’s Daybreak, as the broadcast’s senior meteorologist gleefully admitted to hijinks a quarter century ago.

First, the context: It has been exactly 25 years since a high-tech worry united the world – the dreaded Y2K. It bore the fairly innocuous name “Y2K Bug,” but it drove governments, businesses, schools, and families to take expensive steps to either head off problems or handle chaos it if it arrived.

The concern stemmed from digital dates widely embedded in chips and computers. Experts cautioned that many devices at the time were not designed to handle the switch from 1999 to 2000, raising fears that everything from microwaves and garage door openers to missile systems and spacecraft would suddenly malfunction at midnight, leading to a global catastrophe.

A 2024 dive into the WISH-TV archives yielded video recorded in downtown Indianapolis on Dec. 31, 1999, as local, state and federal agencies gathered together as the clock wound down, preparing to take on any public emergencies that, fortunately, failed to materialize.

The look back led the Daybreak team to reminisce.

“I remember that they told us all to turn off our computers,” Stormtrack 8 Meteorologist Tara Hastings recalled. She was a student at Valparaiso University at the time, and says the student PC terminals all had a stickers with Y2K warnings.

Daybreak’s Brittany Noble reminded us that the concerns bled over into the pop culture and fashion of the time, too. “I had a Y2K bag,” she shared. “I don’t know why. It was a black bag and it said ‘Y2K’!”

With that as the backdrop of our conversation, Marcus decided to drop a personal bombshell about what he did at the stroke of midnight on Y2K.

“In Muncie, when that would have been my senior year of high school, I may have flipped some of the breakers in the garage at a party,” Bailey boasted about the flick of the switches that plunged the place into darkness.

“Me and my buddies thought it would be fun.”

“That’s crazy!” Noble replied.

Bailey declined to give more details, just in case the statute of limitations on such mischief has not expired.

But it’s clear he’s still delighted at the effect all these years later.

“Yeah, you could hear the screams in the house,” he said with a grin.

Bailey, on retelling the tale to the News 8 assignment desk, promised once again that he was a “good kid.”