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Funworld February 2012
by Keith Miller It’s an old saying in the attractions industry that no matter how well you plan for the season, the one thing you can’t control is the weather. This certainly was proven true as Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee pounded the U.S. East Coast in 2011. Unfortunately, these same coastal facilities—along with attractions in Japan—discovered the adage also holds true for earthquakes. Though they couldn’t control these phenomena, these attractions demonstrated that careful preparation and a prudent response can reduce damage, prevent injuries, and save lives. Knoebels Floods Out The park was completely covered with several feet of water. Knoebels experienced floods in 1972, 1975, 1996, 2004, and 2006; this one was a few inches short of the deepest ever, in 1972, but it may have actually been worse because the park has grown significantly since then. It’s not as if Knoebels didn’t make preparations for the flood, but Muscato explains why some of them weren’t more effective: “We’ve grown so much since the last big one that the water traveled different paths and reached places it never had before. And, of course, the streams had changed, too.” Knoebels has procedures in place for dealing with natural disasters and follows them when weather forecasts predict flooding. One of these is to remove the sides of the covered bridge located near the park’s carousel so water flows through the bridge instead of washing it away. “We also try to get things up high,” Muscato notes, “but that didn’t work because [water] went higher than it had before.” Afterward he says there was no need to call in park employees to start the cleanup because they all just showed up the next day and immediately got to work. The power had been turned off, so the first order of business was for electricians to go from attraction to attraction and inspect everything, line by line, before reenergizing. Knoebels served employees breakfast, lunch, and dinner each day, but Muscato reveals the park soon learned something important: “After a few days it became apparent that working long hours wasn’t as productive as working good hours, so we just sent people home each night to have dinner with their families.” He also says just because an emergency situation may be extraordinary doesn’t change the approach to safety: “We still followed our standards, same as we do every day.” Quassy Handles a Hurricane “We’ve got emergency plans in place,” says Ron Gustafson, the park’s public relations and marketing
“Most of our emergency plan involves public safety and getting people off the property,” he notes. “For those still here, we get them inside buildings and we don’t let them go underneath the metal-framed tents.” As part of the preparations, Eric Anderson, co-owner of Quassy, lined up contractors to come into the park when the storm was over to handle situations like downed trees and power lines. As for what Quassy learned from the event, Gustafson says, “We learned the park has a very good emergency plan in place. The key is not to panic; get your thoughts together, and go down a list of priorities of what needs to be done.” Moderate Quake,
Major Reaction Kings Dominion (www.kingsdominion.com) theme park is located only 25 miles or so from Mineral, Virginia, the quake’s epicenter, and the shaking immediately sent the park staff into action. “Our world shook for almost a minute,” says John Pagel, the park’s marketing manager, ”and our ride crews were very conscious that something unusual had happened, so they closed down the rides.” Pagel says maintenance crews proceeded to conduct ride inspections, one by one, and then reopened them. They also inspected the integrity of all structures, and even checked to make certain retail merchandise stands were safe. Procedurally, they followed park protocols for start-of-season and start-of-operating-day inspections, so the staff knew just what to do. One very heads-up move by Kings Dominion was to proactively contact local emergency authorities to let them know the park was OK. “We told them we were fine so they could concentrate on other things,” notes Pagel. Another well-received move was to allow all guests in the park that day to return for a free visit during the next couple of weeks. Big Shakeup Tokyo Disneyland (www.tokyodisneyresort.co.jp) remained closed for five weeks following the quake, and Hiroshi Suzuki, public relations manager for the Oriental Land Company, which owns the park, tells Funworld about some of the steps the park had previously taken that minimized damage. “Our seismic strengthening design is [higher] than the standard of our country,” he says. “We took measures against liquefaction across the whole site by stabilizing the ground before building the resort, and there was no liquefaction seen in the park—only in some parking lots. We have disaster prevention drills more than 180 times a year, and we store three-to-four days of food for 50,000 people at six places in the park, and 5,000 tons of water.” Though Universal Studios Japan in Osaka (www.usj.co.jp) wasn’t as heavily impacted by the quake, the park does have emergency plans in place for natural disasters, including earthquakes and tsunamis, according to Noriko Matsushita of the park’s publicity marketing department: “We [have] guidelines to stop operating attractions in the park and for evacuation methods, safety confirmation of Matsushita stresses another important point: When emergency evacuation routes are designed, they need to take into account that certain structures might be destroyed. Though most of these attractions benefitted from their excellent planning, Knoebels’ Muscato relates one more good lesson about being flexible when preparing for disasters: “I think the main thing we discovered was that the next big one that comes along won’t be like the last big one.” Contact News Editor Keith Miller at kmiller@IAAPA.org.
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A couple of days before the hurricane struck, Quassy began taking down vulnerable objects like flags, canvas coverings, hanging baskets, ride signs, and tents. For safety’s sake, most of the preparations were handled by park maintenance workers because Gustafson says they’re accustomed to doing this type of takedown work at the end of the season.