Non-News: Monorail Strands Passengers During Power Outage

[Wizzard419]

So they have backup plans for when things don't work in, they have no real method for working in an emergency, they may not even have a way of knowing what is going on inside each car during a power failure. The person who plans for these scenarios (to paraphrase Abe Lincoln) has "done f*cked up". I'm actually surprised insurance and legal have not jumped all over them for stuff like that since it is a massive liability.

[Len90]

So they have backup plans for when things don't work in, they have no real method for working in an emergency, they may not even have a way of knowing what is going on inside each car during a power failure. The person who plans for these scenarios (to paraphrase Abe Lincoln) has "done f*cked up". I'm actually surprised insurance and legal have not jumped all over them for stuff like that since it is a massive liability.

They do have phones in the cars to communicate if there is an issue. Each car has a firewall to prevent fire spread, handrail along the roof to allow passage between cars in the event of an emergency. Reedy Creek has the special monorail rescue vehicle that is just a big scissor lift truck to evacuate the cars and was used in this instance.

There are back up plans, but I think this was just that one situation that was the worst possible thing to happen. I'm sure following this incident Disney will be looking into other things that can be done to address a situation like this in a more timely manner or to see if there is anything that could be done differently.

[Wizzard419]

All of these things are worthless in an actual emergency, such as a fire where the extinguisher is not enough. You're trapped on a beam, people are panicked. There would be considerable deaths from trampling, falling, etc.

Even if there weren't an emergency like that, what happens if a train is trapped out there and someone has a medical emergency? If the phone to the front (not verified if it was still working in the power failure as they can fail) does work, you're still talking about having to bring out the scissor lift (or even a hook and ladder) to get EMTs up.

The system itself is something that looks pretty in promo shots, but it's incredibly expensive to build for and it has problems like this where people are trapped in the cars for extended periods. This is probably why they also never did more with it.

[cy1229]

I am surprised this story inspired two pages of discussion! But nothing beats Squirrel Vs Monorail for best WDW news story.

http://youtu.be/FoeY9PzosZ4

THREE pages...

I agree, Wizz, it's a huge liability. But maybe it just never occurred to anyone that the power would go out at the very instant a train was on top of the switches. Not excusing it, just saying it might be like not anticipating a flood at the Japanese nuclear power plant is a good reason to not have the emergency generator in the basement....

[Wizzard419]

Usually, and especially if you're doing something where you are transporting stuff that can sue you, you look at the worst case scenario. Throwing in how common weather related outages are in Florida, you would think they would have planned more than "Hey, let them fill the cars with human waste, give them no AC, and let them rot up there for a while."

[aboden]

I am surprised this story inspired two pages of discussion! But nothing beats Squirrel Vs Monorail for best WDW news story.

http://youtu.be/FoeY9PzosZ4

That's so pathetic but so funny lol a little squirrel stopping a monorail. <3