Dates of the "Great Power Outage" over the summer?

Anyone know the day of the "Great Power Outage" at CP over the summer? I think it was Mid-Late June...not sure, anyone know the exact date?

July 1st, 2002-The Power outage!

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Screamsters 2001
Millennium Force/Screamsters 2002
There are 24 hours in a day, and 24 beers in a case. Coincidence?

Yeah, how much fun was that working Mantis and having trains stop everywhere. I remember once, the train had just passed the safety brakes when the 2nd one hit, so it was turned on its 15* turn going into the station. I had to climb into the last couple rows and hang onto the train over the lagoon (no floor to step on) and manually unlock harnesses and PUSH people out of the train. That was scary.

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MANTIS ROCKS 2002 & 2003

Does this happen often? I never herd of power loss at cp.
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wood stand for...Wood Out Of Date.. sledding is the only thing that is close to cp in the winter the way i put it six flags needs more parks to keep up with the ine and only cp :)

There was a more isolated power outage during the 2001 season. I believe MF, Mantis, and PT were involved. I remember because Magnum and Raptor stayed open an extra hour that night so the people who were stopped and evacuated from those rides (I guess it took longer than usual or something for some reason) could catch some more rides. And of course Joe E and many other people took advantage of the "ERT" as well! :)

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

I'm not sure when it was, but the power outage I experienced last year was awesome. It was pouring down rain, pitch black in Frontier Town, and scary looking in the direction of Millennium Force and the Wicked Twister area as well. No lights, no sounds, no movement, nothing. The contrast was a little creepy.

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BTS Cedar Point
http://www.btscedarpoint.tk

I've been in the park a few times when the power went out, each time being a result of some really cool thunder storms. Of course, whenever that's happened, there are never any rides open, so I've never seen a bunch of them stop at once.

It is really cool to see the whole park instantly fall into darkness after an intense flash of lightning. I once saw the power go out twice during the same storm. The first time I was by the Dodgems, and watched all the lights at that ride, Coasters, and the Sky Ride shut off. By the next time they went off, I had advanced into the outside waiting area of the IMAX Theatre (this was in 2001) when they told us the IMAX show was going to be cancelled because of storm damage to the equipment.

Then last summer, a passing storm knocked out power for a little while around 7 PM. The park instantly emptied, so my friend and I spent some time walking around a mostly empty park in the dark. We ended up waiting by WT for the rides to re-open, and watched the cool lightning show over the lake.

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-Chris Woodard
"If you're standing in an uncomfortable position, that means you are in the right position because you are riding Mantis!" - Mantis ride op doing spiels on closing day.

I was in Breakers during the "Great Power Outage". It was the weekend of July 27-28-29, I don't recall which day exactly.

Talking to a few of the seasonals in the hotel, many said that they had never seen a power outage before. And I have to tell ya - Breakers is SCARY without lights on.

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Tommy Penner
- YoYoBaybeeMan

well i was on the power tower crew during '02 and while i had off during the july 1st outage, i was around for the second one. the main midway was lit up to matterhorn. pt, mf, corkscrew, mantis, and the other rides in the area were out. this happend right after the most powerful storm of the season. we were taking shelter in our room and we looked out and saw lightning barely missing the wt. a lightning bolt struck right my mantis. but the scariest thing we saw was the green sky looming over pt. then a purple sky.. then red.. was the craziest thing i ever saw.

I forget the date but this summer I was there and the lightning struck the little building down on the causeway. Really loud also.

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"Give Me Liberty.............Or a Bran Muffin."
-Colin Mochrie-
-Whose Line Is It Anyway-

So there were two power outages this summer?

fat chris - I think you're talking about the power outage that I went through. I remember hearing from employees that one of the lines for Cedar Point was struck by lightning, hence leaving parts of the park w/o power, but other parts with.

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Tommy Penner
- YoYoBaybeeMan

The big outage was July 1st. I remember it vividly. That outage was totaly unrelated to a thunderstorm. we had small bumps all that morning. Then the big one hit. From what i understand the power went out all over the county and over to toledo as well. We did have another outage in late july that was a part of a thunderstorm however i was off.

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Park Op Jen
2003 Park Op Office
2002 Park Op Office
2001 TL Swings and Swans/Monster Triangle
1999 TL Peanuts Playground / Kiddy Kingdom
1998 Kiddy Kingdom/ Bear Country/ Iron Dragon/ Disaster Transport

The one on July 1st was very widespread, and yes, parts of Toledo did lose power. I think the cause was the coupple of weeks of record heat we experianced before hand had stressed the power supply (remember, Davis Besse was shut down last summer) and was causing massive brown outs.

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-Chris Woodard
"If you're standing in an uncomfortable position, that means you are in the right position because you are riding Mantis!" - Mantis ride op doing spiels on closing day.

It's cool how many people here remeber these :).

The first one was the entire park, which was July 1st. The rides were closed for some time so they kept either the whole park or some rides open extra.

The 2nd was Sunday, July 28th I think around 7-8pm where most of the park was out except for the area surrounding Magnum. This occurred during a big storm. About an hour and a half later power was restored but big time lightning was still in the area so they park never really reopened

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Wow, a new ride is being built.

I remember the one in 2001! I was at the Breakers Fridays and the lights flickered. Then the place turned dark. After a few minutes the power flickered again. Then the fire alarm went off! And we were told to stay put, then told to leave. We eventually got back in and with out complaining or saying anything the manager offered us our meals for free, since we had ordered before the lights went out. It was funny because there was no storms. Plus free JD chicken, you can't beat that!
_____JESUS-FREAK_______

Question, Does CP automatically tell riders to take cover if a storm is approaching? Also, Where would you go? I see no buildings that people can "take-cover" into during a storm? Does CP give advance notice say 15 minutes?
*** This post was edited by CPFan2003 1/26/2003 9:52:25 PM ***

Most the time, the only way the ride ops know about weather is, um...looking up at the sky. We don't find out that really bad weather is coming (or nearly here) until we get the phone call to take the ride down.

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MANTIS ROCKS 2002 & 2003

While each ride does not have a THOR monitoring system or anything like that, the crews at CP do have the power to shut their ride down at any time they feel it is unsafe to operate. They do not have to wait for the call from park op.

-Matt
2001 Magnum Crew

The only reason I was asking was because I was in line and getting into one of the trains of MF when it began to rain (Mind you I waited 3 hours to ride.) The ride ops didnt even look outside. MF started up the lift hill and I thought to myself boy this is going to hurt my face...LOL

I remember both power outages this summer and how they pissed me off.

The 1st power outage on July 1st irritated me because I was suppose to get off of work at 6 and I made plans to go back home. Well, I had to stay an extra hour because the whole park was open until midnight instead of 11 that night because of the power outage. I was in controls when it happened and my TL thought I hit E-stop. :)

I was madder when the 2nd power outage occurred on July 28th because I decided to take a cutback so I could go back to my dorm and do my laundry that I desperately needed to do. So I left and got something to eat in Sandusky and went back to my room at Cedars. While I was walking by Blue Streak, I saw one of the transformers blow and watched the park lose power. I was mad because when I got back to Cedars, the power was out and I couldn't do laundry. I ended up going back to Corkscrew to talk to my crew that was "cleaning". I was mad because I could've stayed there and not had to work and gotten paid for it.

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Justin
Corkscrew ATL 2003
Corkscrew Crew 2002
http://www.msu.edu/~kemppai8/ --- My stupid website