Cedar Point affected by power outage?

When they have power outages like this, how exactly do they evacuate the Sky Ride? I'm guessing they have a generator that can power the ride long enough to unload.

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Mathyou said:
I was about to ask the same. On their web cam, it doesn't look like Millennium Force is moving. I've been hitting the reload button over and over and the train is still at the top of the lift.

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Ummmm... webcam #1 is timestamped at 4:10pm. Hit "reload" all you want, the MForce train isn't budging. Since the camera takes a shot once every minute, that particular train most likely made it over.

Non-event. Yawn.

Lost power here for 2.5 hours, by the way.

Actually though, if you look at the Breakers cam, it says 4:09 and MF is in the same place. Maybe the rides lost power before the webcams did.

I wonder if the guests got something nice for being kicked out at 7:00 this evening? I think it would be cool to get stopped on just about any coaster, especially MF. Sky Ride, Space Spiral, Demon Drop, Power Tower, and any spinning ride would be cool as well.

Rideman told us about the motors on MF, maybe he or someone else can explain what they do with some of these other rides.

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-Chris Woodard
Who the Millennium Force ride ops made a special announcement for when he took his 100th ride on 8/12/03.

I left the park around 5, when they started to close all the shops and stands.

Sky Ride was stuck, but they started something up and got everyone off of it. Raptor was stuck in the little brake area, right before the second part of the ride starts. The only other rides I could see was Dragster, Millennium, Power Tower and Wicked Twister, and none of them were stuck (that I could see).

The power in Huron, I also assume Sandusky, came on not too long ago. I was at Cedar Point when it happened. As a matter of fact, I was about 10 minutes from riding TTD! Millennium Force was stuck for a while, then they sent the train over I guess with the engine RideMan was talking about. I also saw people walking down from a Magnum train about 3/4 the way up the lift. I also saw Mantis, Sky Ride, and the Space Spiral stuck. The Space Spiral was still stuck when I left, at least an hour after the blackout.

Dave, I realized that a few minutes after my post, I was to excited between the TV and the web cam to notice that the cam wasn't taking anymore pictures. So, that train possibly did make it over.

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-Matthew
When it's good, it's very good...
When it's bad, it's wicked

I was in Frontiertown by the Shooting Gallery when the power went out at about 4:15PM. It was kind of cool, although no one new what was going on for a while.

We were stuck on the Frontier side of the railroad crossing by Gemini, & the gates were stuck down. The ops wouldn't let anyone through, & my car was in the Soak City lot. We walked all the way around the park to get back to the Soak City lot. The park was eerily quiet without the music, and very crowded with all the rides closed & people out of the queues. But as crowded as it was, people were very quiet.

I saw people stuck on lift hills for Magnum, Mine Ride, & Milennium. The ones on Millie were stationary near the top for about 15 minutes, then suddenly the train went over the top & completed the ride, with many of us cheering below. As the train returned to station, I shouted "Welcome back riders, how was your ride?" from the midway.

As I made my way around the beach side of the park, I noted 2 loaded TTD cars waiting in the staging area. The occupants had been given paper fans, but looked very warm. A train load of passengers were stranded in the Corkscrew brake run, & the ride ops were handing out drinks to them.

By this time, my boys & I were ready for a plunge at Soak City, but that was closed. We left the park(along with many others) at about 5:30.

The real challenge was navigating the dozen or so non-working red light intersections between the causeway and the interchange of routes 101 and 2.

Yeah, two trains were stuck in TTD's staging area and one at the end of the ride when I left. I talked to my sister from Michigan and power was out there too, but nobody in line would believe a massive blackout happened from a 16 year old. I was even teased by an employee. "I heard it's worldwide!"
*** This post was edited by Phillip Studans 8/14/2003 10:09:41 PM ***

I just checked the webcames. 2 of them are timestamped at around 10:06. The TTD station cam still hasn't changed. Very few lights are on right now inside the park. Makes me wonder if the power didn't come on long enough for the cameras to snap an image then went out again.

A couple of notes from a ride op I talked to...

First off, getting people off the rides was a pain because apparently it's normal procedure to have managers there to do it. So because of their lack of training or trust, or both, people had to sit on rides like Mine Ride and Corkscrew for as much as an hour. In the heat today, that defies common sense. Time to revisit that operating procedure. If they needed a manager to come open the restraints on Dragster, that's even more ridiculous.

Whatever power they had to MF apparently didn't work. If the ride op I talked to is correct, they had to manually ratchet the drum some how to get the train over the top. That's just speculation of course.

The biggest problem was probably communication. When I talked to the ride op a little after six, most employees had absolutely no idea what happened, and there was a quiet panic about terrorist attacks and such. Probably not a good thing with a group that likely one-fifth or more of is spending their first months away from home on their own. It was widely expected that the park would re-open.

I think the mayor of NYC put it best. This was a major inconvenience, but not really an emergency.

I love that one of the Cleveland stations flew a chopper out to CP only to show empty trains on Raptor. Somehow the traffic jams around Cleveland would've made for better TV, I think.

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Jeff - Webmaster - GTTP - Sillynonsense.com
DELETED! What time does the water show start?
*** This post was edited by Jeff 8/14/2003 10:20:12 PM ***

Jeff said:

I love that one of the Cleveland stations flew a chopper out to CP only to show empty trains on Raptor. Somehow the traffic jams around Cleveland would've made for better TV, I think.

You're kidding, right? ;)

I think it's odd that they had communication and other problems. You'd think they'd have a very well planned and practiced procedure for major power failures.
*** This post was edited by ryangs 8/14/2003 11:13:19 PM ***

Does anyone know what happened with White Water Landing? I'm sure there were a ton of canoes in the flumes on this crowded day. Did the canoes just slam into each other and stack?

And could anyone explain how the brakes work. I know that in the event of a power loss, the brakes must immediately lock to stop trains, but I'm wondering how. Wicked Twister for example (assuming in motion)...did it stop at it the correct location, or just from loss of energy? Power Tower is also an interesting one. Would it be possible for it to get stuck at the top when adjusting the air pressure?

I bet someone got the complete darkness ride on Disaster Transport; that would be so eerie to see it happen. Also, did some rides continue operation like the Turnpike cars? I have many questions, but I'd just like to hear more experiences about people getting stuck on rides like Demon Drop and so on. They'd have to completely lock all the rides before evacuating people, or what would happen if power came back on when bars were unlocked for evacuation? But, how do they "lock" the rides without power......hmmmm.....

Ok, it was a weird day. The only things I can really comment on are those things I'm allowed to.

As far as braking systems when there's a power failure: your rides that use the "air brakes" are virtually fail-proof. As soon as air pressure or power is lost they go to the default "closed" position meaning that no trains can pass through them. As far as Wicked Twister goes, I don't know for sure but I'd assume the brakes would drop without power and stop the train.

It was eerie to walk through a virtually ghost town-like park.

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Formerly the imbecile known as ddogg
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2003 Super Screw Crew

Here is a little more information.

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Walt Schmidt
Virtual Midway

An hour on Space Spiral.... that had to be complete torture! Seriously, as hot was it was today, that had to be a human oven and I wouldn't have been surprised to hear about hospital visits coming from this one.... think about it: it's a hot day, there's virtually no ventilation, no way to get water to these folks, and you have many people in a relatively cramped area... wow.

JayDubs

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Striker, Coco, Misty, and Breeze - Gone, but not forgotten...

So, I was the front-end manager today at Giant Eagle and the power went out. You talk about panic at Cedar Point, ha, try being at Giant Eagle where people are running around and people are banging on the doors asking for ice , not to mention complete and total darkness...all while I'm trying to restore calm, and eventually did.

But I'm sure CP had communication problems as well...

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Race for the Sky. :::::::::::::9

On White Water Landing, boats in the flume would all bump together and stop at the top of the drop. The water would drain on down the drop and the boats would sit on the bottom of the trough.

The brakes on all the coasters would close, and the lifts would stop. On Millennium Force, an engine (natural gas powered?) would be used to take the train over the top of the lift. Skyride has a gas engine (and a hand-crank system if that fails). Raptor's evacuation car is also gas powered. The railroad is coal fired, of course, and the turnpike cars are gasoline and the Paddlewheel boats are gas powered. Magnum and Gemini might need hand-pushed a few feet to get the last cars emptied. Wicked Twister would coast to a stop somewhere near the station. Actually, the brakes would probably drop on that one, so it wouldn't even take long for it to stop. Ocean Motion would coast to a stop. Chaos and Witches Wheel can be jogged down with a wrench. So can Troika if it doesn't just dump the hydraulics when the power goes out. Likewise the Samba Balloon and the Wave Swinger. Sky Fighter, Red Baron and Helicopter all come down when stopped. Tilt, Musik Express, Matterhorn, Calypso, Scrambler, Bumper Cars, it doesn't matter where those things stop.

Monster has a no-power procedure, but I am not sure how it works. On an Octopus it involves having roustabouts walk up and down the sweeps to unbalance the ride to move it around, but on the Monster I am not sure what they have to do to release the brake. Giant Wheel would also be interesting; I'm not sure how they're gonna move that, but I think if they can operate the brakes the load on the wheel should provide the force needed to turn it.

Demon Drop is one I wonder about. If the car is at the top, it would be easy to unload. On the lift, though, I'm not sure how they'd deal with it.

The other nasty one would be Space Spiral. I imagine if it is loaded, they might be able to release a brake and use the load to bring it down. But if it is a light load, would it still come down against the counterweight? If it is a heavy load, could they keep the speed under control as it descends? I know it bothers me just a little that there is a rope ladder in the cabin under the operator's seat... :) I know there has to be an easier way...if nothing more than to bring over a portable generator and crank it down!

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Being Stuck in Space Spiral would be HORRIBLE! I was in that on a hot day and I could hardly take the ride to the top. I thought I was gonna pass out just going to the top and back, it was horrible. Just imagine being stuck in there for an hour.. ugh. They should have some sort of ventilating system in there. It's soooooooo hot.

If nobody else saw, Cedar Point and Magnum made national news on CNN:

here

Thanks for the info RideMan. When you think about all that, I can imagine how crazy it was for the maintenance department. I think a big hats-off should go to those guys.
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