Water Main Break

And they don't even have islands near by.

That is going to be terrible for people who came here from long distances for this weekend. Honoring their tickets won't help them much. I really feel bad for them. I am so glad that this won't affect our plans for next Wednesday, when we will be at CP. Hotel is booked and paid for.

Aging infrastructure, including water mains, is a problem across the country, not just at Cedar Point. The city I live in typically has a couple of water main breaks every winter. I'm just surprised it happened in June and not over the very cold winter.

What do you play , I used to be a trumpet player. The players in the Core usually got some chops. Did you know that the principal trumpet player in CSO was a product of D&B system. I heard his say that a few years ago, so possibly it's not there any more. Sorry , this is off topic, but I just noticed your signature, and it got me started.

firemedic2572 said:

Without cedar fair Sandusky has nothing..

They have a 24 hour Domino's pizza, which I don't have back home... Fun finding that by accident after the late ert of Coastermania

Something tells me they have 24 hours Domino's pizza because of Cedar Point.

^ +1

I wonder if that little amusement park in town with the go-karts was busy today?

0g said:
Aging infrastructure, including water mains, is a problem across the country, not just at Cedar Point. The city I live in typically has a couple of water main breaks every winter. I'm just surprised it happened in June and not over the very cold winter.

In Cleveland we have water main breaks all the time because of ageing infrastructure that is not replaced. But very few customers are without water when that happens because of redundancy built into the system. My dad was one of the engineers for the City of Cleveland Water Dept. who designed much of the current infrastructure and Cleveland water, though old, is robust and reliable. For Sandusky to let the main serving CP get into the condition it is in without having a second main available to carry the load is inexcusable. A single point of failure wiped out the entire peninsula, they should have added a second main to supplement the original to handle a situation that happened today. It's not just the park, the people in the hundreds of boats in the CP marina are all residents for the summer. Maybe CP pays our water bill, but we are all dependent on Sandusky water as any resident in the city is. I'm glad I filled my water tank on Friday, I can at least shower on my boat. This is even a major fire safety issue. A fire that normally would be knocked down by sprinklers in a building could turn into a major disaster without water. To have the entire peninsula dry because of a break in a decades old main should be an embarrassment to the city and they need to use some of that admission tax money to make sure that this will not happen again.

Wow, what a mess this is. The park is already rumored to have gotten off to a slow start this year (at least according to first hand accounts on this forum), and now they've lost attendance and revenue for a key weekend with good weather. This has dug the park into a bit of a hole.

I will be curious to hear more reactions to CP's handling of this unfortunate incident. A company's handling of an extraordinary situation can really go a long way toward determining the ultimate damage incurred by it.

I bet Sandusky city leaders are feeling the heat currently... Where would the city be without CP's tax revenue / tourism brought in?

We got the park pretty late on Saturday, we live within an hour drive of CP and got a late but had decided to take the family up for a day at the park.

We were coming in the back way along Cedar Point Rd. We noticed something was amiss because so much traffic was coming out of the park but we continued on because there was no easy way to turn around. My wife and I were really concerned so we turned on the local radio 102.7 but they had no info. Cell coverage was pretty spotty and my wife couldn't get her phone to do a web search. I imagine the cell towers were saturated with so many people stuck I traffic.
At this point it was after 11:30 and she couldn't get the CP official web page to load in her browser. I handed her my phone and told her to launch Twitter and search Cedar Point. We learned then that the park was closed. We continued to the park. I figured taking the causeway out would be quicker than backtracking on the two lane Cedar Point Road which was pretty backed up.

We were shocked at the lack of information we received when we reached the toll booth at the lot. The attendant knew the park was closed but said it may reopen and could park in the lot and wait! What?! how could the parking attendant be so badly informed? At this point the official twitter page had already stared the park would not be opening.

Why had Sandusky police not closed off Cedar Point Rd or even posted officers at Rye Beach road?

The official statement from CP was a early morning water break. What time was the break first causing problems? Early morning to me implies before 9am. Maybe much earlier.

I really question park management and city officials for letting anybody in the park.
News reports have park visitors stating that food stations and bathrooms were closed upon their entry, I've been to the park for early entry before and it's normal for most (maybe all) the food stations to be closed but the bathrooms are never closed.

So what is the timeline regarding when the break actually occurred and when CP made the decision to close/not open?

Circumstantial evidence seems to show the break happened pretty early and that the park had reasonable suspicion that there was a major plumbing problem. I really think CP needs to be questioned about this.

Just curious, but do the majority of the people posting here get this upset when their school was closed for a broken water main or weather related issue the local municipality couldn't quickly resolve?

While It certainly appears that after the Columbus Day traffic problems and this entire weekend issues with clean water weren't anticipated, it proves that a review of CP's disaster planning needs a major overhaul and improvement before the next "oh shucks" takes place. CP seems to be on a policy kick anyway - so they need to plan for themselves how to survive a power, water, or other utility outage - and better their ways to communicate these problems to the customer.

Disney has demonstrated this sort of planning several times when earthquakes rocked Disneyland (and the park in Asia) forcing its sudden and unexpected closure.

I'm not upset, I'm simply stating fact. We had a great 3 day trip to the best amusement park on earth. Hiccups happen. Better to roll with it and make the best out of situations than to waste precious time complaining.

SteveH said:
CP seems to be on a policy kick anyway - so they need to plan for themselves how to survive a power, water, or other utility outage - and better their ways to communicate these problems to the customer.

A power problem, maybe. But a MASSIVE water main break. There's no way to avoid that, or simply survive as you say.

And communicate with their customers??? They notified the media, radio, updated their website, facebook, twitter, etc. What else could they have done?

I'm just hoping for an official annoucement of them opening tomorrow before I get up at 600am and head out to the park. I see they got the main repaired and are working on pressure and water quality at least.

I think they did everything they could, and that they did a great job at communication. I actually first heard about it on a news radio in Metro Detroit at a little after 11:00am, and at least it is raining today while they are closed.

Um, a water tower on the property (oh, yes - we have one of those but we apparently only use it only as a billboard) would be the solution most small cities use to offset a supply problem.

CP radio (rather than the hyped new CP TV) and possibly a in-park PA system (CP has no paging or announcement ability) would have communicated to the guests a much better explanation of what was going on. Even many of the ride-ops were confused. Clearly, there was a breakdown in communication (even within the ranks) as to what exactly was going on, and if the problem was going to be resolved at 1PM Saturday or by Monday.

Just like fire drills, an effective disaster recovery plan needs to be constantly re-evaluated, especially when there is a situation like this to learn from.

There's no cure for hearsay. It's like the game, "telephone". Sorry, but you're laying way too much blame on Cedar Point.

If CP wants to be a all inclusive destination where you park your car and stay for a few days it needs to provide itself with contingency supply's for any outage.
It's just like on a cruise ship. They have to have a plan for any issue that risks their customers health, safety, and satisfaction.

SteveH said:
Um, a water tower on the property (oh, yes - we have one of those but we apparently only use it only as a billboard) would be the solution most small cities use to offset a supply problem.

As I've said before, I'm an engineer who works on potable water system design/construction/repair.

For town's that have their own water systems, we'd like to have a tank/tower with a 24 hour reserve capacity.
For a suburban town of 10,000 people that's 1 million gallons, with no fires.

Today's Super Pumpers can use over 1500 gallons of water per minute.
A major fire would blow through 1 million gallons in no time.

Even with a tank, if I'm CP, I'm saving every gallon of water I can in case of a fire.