Even though I wasn't at the park at the time of the water spouts in Lake Erie, I wanted to find out some information from eye-witness accounts. So if those of you that were working or were just visiting the park that day would post your experience, it would be very much appreciated.
check out the site http://go.to/Zone34/ under memories
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Wagons Supervisor 2000
Will May 6th ever arrive?????
I too was at the park that day, however, as a guest and not an employee. Although I do not have any pictures, I have a story which I can share with you.
I remember it was a beautiful day and we were heading over toward Snake River Falls... but we were hitting most of the rides along the way so it was taking us quite some time. Just about the time we FINALLY got there it started becoming dark and cooler. We decided to go on it anyway because it looked like it was going to rain, and, if we were going to get wet we might as well get wet the fun way!!! Once we stepped off of the ride we noticed that it was getting really dark so we headed toward the front of the park. Along the way it started raining, and this was not your everyday rain, it was like cold pellets coming down on you (not quite hail though). Pretty soon it started coming from all sides (one second it would be coming at you from the left, then front, then right, etc.), eventually it was coming in horizontally. About then I looked up and saw it. We proceeded to head to the front of the park with everyone else. People were screaming and pushing and it was a difficult task. It was even harder because I hurt my knee the day before and couldn't walk very well and the cold rain made it too stiff to move. My friend ended up carrying me out of the park that day through a couple of feet of water in many places.
Although this was not one of my better memories, it is not one that shall be forgotten anytime soon!
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2000 Millennium Force Ride Operator!!!
I was working when they came, and was on my 45 back in the Stockade. I just got there when it started to rain really hard. Soon the rain haltered and I looked up at the sky and saw it. There was one just hovering in the sky followed closley by another. Both were quite small and moved by rather quickly. But while they were there, other employees started to bring guests back into the break area and take them into the frezer. Alot of the guests were yelling and looked quite scared. I just stood around and watched them go by. It was kind of cool yet scary at the same time.
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Monster Ride Host
2nd Year
I was in my basement, heeding the Weather Channel's admonishment.
*** This post was edited by bobthetomato on 4/29/2000. ***
I was working that day. I worked in housekeeping in accomodations. I worked at the Sandcastle. I remember when I went into the little employee break area at Sandcastle, on break. The sky was black. I still remember looking at the Mean Streak lift hill. The sky over there was so black that the Mean Streak looked like the lights were on. It looked like it was lit up for the night. After my brake it was still black out. I then went up to a room that I was taking out all of the trash from the guests who had checked out. I had to take the bed spread down to the linen room. When I was on my way to the linen room one of the girls was sweeping outside. She saw the 1st water spout. It was back near the Breakwater Cafe. So I go and take the bed spread to the linen room, and I tell the people in there about the water spout. I go back to the Raptor wing, and I tell the employees about it. By this time the rain is just coming down. Everybody stops working and they just go and run to look out the windows. There were some guests who were standing outside taking pictures, and video taping it. The garbage cans outside of the lobby were all over the parking lot. Just after we see the first water spout out lining the peninsula, there's another one right next to it. Since the shape of the peninsula curves on the bay side the water spout looked like it was going right through the middle of the park. Then right above the pretzel portion of the Magnum there was a funnel cloud up in the sky. Then right next to it was another funnel cloud. The sky in this area was gray, and I could see great detail of both funnel clouds. Then after all of the standing and watching our supervisor tells us to get back to work, and that the Accomodations office was monitoring the weather. In the mean time some guests were on the first floor of the Raptor wing. Some of the guests were crying. It was so windy that when a door on the second floor opened from the hallway by the elevator, that all of the ceiling pieces started to go up. It was like someone standing there and pushing them up. Then I was taking the sheets off of a bed, and I heard the girl down the hall who was cleaning scream. I run into the room that she was in. I asked her what's wrong. There was another funnel cloud forming out over the lake. The lake was very rough looking. The waves were tremendous. The funnel cloud was black and gray. It was pretty big. It kept spinning, and getting bigger. But it headed off directly across the lake. It was a tornado. It never hit the water. After that it was all over. It stopped raining and the sun came back up. But out over the lake to the East the sky was black, purple, pink, and red. The lake water looked really dark black compared to the color of the sky. I wished that I had a camera to take a picture of looking towards the lake. I had never saw the sky that way before. When I got off work at about 4:00 p.m. I was going over the causeway, and I saw all of these news vans heading to Cedar Point. The next morning I was watching the today show. They mentioned that water spouts were spotted near an amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. They had an amature video of it. The video was taken by someone standing in their backyard in Sanduksy. That's one day that I will not forget. The entire thing only lasted for about a few minutes.
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Mantis How Much Can You Stand?
Oops i guess that i failed to mentioned that there is a picture of the water sprout on that website i mentioned above
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Went to go visit some friends yesterday at cp just to find out that they rode MF 3 hours before I got there :(
HMMMMM....good thing I didn't change the memory yet...cause I was really tempted to do it today...glad I looked here I might leave it up for another week or so...
thanks for the plug grac! :)
i was there. we were having alot of fun and it started to rain so we went to are camper at camper village. I didnt see any of the spouts but later we left the park and passed a gas station and pumps were lying accross the street. when we got back to the park one of the side walks in camper village was flooded and we had to cross a ten foot long strip of waist deep water. it was kinda cool and at the same time not.
There's a picture of it on my website as well.
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--Meg
--Lee is Cake, 4 go, The Aliens have Arrived!!
--http://www.geocities.com/gullysprincess/
I was working that day. I was at Corkscrew Eskimo Pie. (There's was Dippin Dots at that spot in '99) I remember guests were screaming "LOOK, TORNADO!!!" Guests ran into the break area underneath the Corkscrew. Just then my break person came. I ran as fast as I could to the Employee Cafeteria. I could see this big white funnel cloud. In the Cafeteria guests were in there seeking shelter. They were also in the Foods Office. Eventually they made the announcment that the worst had passed. Afterwards a huge downpour ensued. I had to run back behind Stockade in that and I was drenched. Then I went back to my room and dried out the rest of the day.