anyone been at a park during a tornado warning

Hey, has anyone ever been to a park during a tornado warning? If you did, what did they tell you to do?

Stark Raven Mad, 1998. We went down to a gift shop that is mostly under ground.

At PKI there are quite a few places they can put people. You know that stage at the end of the fountains in the front? Below that stage is the entrance to a huge underground room that stretches from the Eifell Tower to the front gate. There is also a huge basement below the FoF concrete pad where they can fit tons of people, so that is where people go at PKI. woo hoo! I'm imformative tonight!

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WARNING: THIS POST MAY ACTUALLY INCLUDE SARCASM AND OR HUMOR. PLEASE CONSIDER BEFORE RESPONDING.

A room all the way across there!?! Awesome. What's it used for and how did you find out?

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If Millennium Force doesn't go upside-down, then how could Mantis?

Did they have a tornado warning while you were working for intamin sfgam freak?

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How are the purple berries ralph? They taste like burnding. - the simpsons

Yeah i was. The rest of my family was in line for demon. (i was scared of coasters then, but now i am 100 times a freak that they are), anyway, they said that there was a tornado watch. That was fine. I could see the storm coming. Then a while later they said that there was a warning and they had to evacuate the park. Everybody started running and i was so scared. We got to our car, and we went for the highway. i couldn't see out the window it was raining so hard. So we stopped on the side of the road, and the rain was like coming down like a river. Finally we got back on the highway and a funnel cloud came right over it! It was craqzy.

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Neil, "Boy Genius, Hope of Mankind"
http://kmlaser81.tripod.com/RockinCoasterSite/

Cedar Point back in 98, there were a few waterspouts...it was pretty scary when the magnum libnes comes rushing at you and then you see a funnel by the second hill.

Evacuating the park I think would be a BIG mistake turning a Tornado Warning. The last thing you want is thousands of people running around a parking lot filled with cars during a Tornado!

This could be a serious issue if some parks have poorly planned emergency procedures. This is something that would happen once in a hundred blue moons, but if park personal are not trained to handle situations like this it could get ugly.

It sounds like PKI has the right idea. Get people to take shelter!

2 years ago, Frontier City in Oklahoma City was hit be a tornado. The peeps were able to take cover in buildings and restrooms and were all ok except for a few cuts and bruises but the cars in the parking lot were all tossed around and many were totaled. The biggest thing was the huge traffic jam caused by parents trying to get to the park to find out if their kids were ok after the news broke on TV. It opened back up in about a week and I went to check out the damage. It was freaky. Half the rides were still down for repairs the the western themed building fronts were blown off or torn up and the trees were trashed. It was a wild sight, I wish that I had thought to bring a camera with me.

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ravenguy98 said:
"Below that stage is the entrance to a huge underground room that stretches from the Eifell Tower to the front gate."

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How is that possible? It would have to be deep, cause all the weight from the shops/fountain would cave it in. I really don't know. Well thanks for the advice, hopefully all that is at PKD.
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©Bruce's P:)sting Co.

yeah joey.. i was at cedar point in 97 and we were in line for the Raptor and the peeps on the train waiting to enter the station were pointing up to the sky behind where we were in the que, and the ride ops did a superb job of getting everyone off that train!! We ran out of the que and into the nearby restrooms, and heard all six of those water spouts go over. We were freaked!!
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I love the American Eagle at SFGRAM!!!!

I wonder what they'd do at SFWOA! The safety and staff are so bad there they'd probably tell everyone to climb up the spikes of Superman!

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May/June 2001 - 16 parks in 18 days!!!

Coasterdude, thanks for the compliment. I was the team leader of Raptor in 98 when all of the spouts hit. My guys did an excellent job that day. Some of them were scared stiff, but they did a great job. I am surprised that you didn't go below the station. That is where I led most of the front set of queues. That was quite a day.

I wonder what the emergency procedures are like for the Wonderful World of OZ? :)

We were at the ACE spring con several years ago, we were at Strickers Grove enjoying get this....... THE TORNADO

As luck would have it, weather turned ugly, Sirens sounded and we were smack dab in the path of a storm cell that produced a tornado, just after it passed us, and nearly hit PKI.

we were all scared, except the people who ate all the damn food and left NONE for us near the end of the line! (some grudges take time)

SAM

While working at SFGAM I was part of 4 tornado's that I can remember. Depending what ride you were working on you could find shelter. The Roaring Rapids ride has a large room under the turntable which is where the crew took shelter from the storm.

Some of the other locations were under the Power Dive, Inside Space Shuttle America/Dino Island, Pictorium, The Demon Tunnel, the Train Tunnel, Under Chubasco I think that pretty much covers all that I could think of. I know employee's sometimes just hide out wherever they can find shelter.

The best story I can remember was when I had to help evacuate the line at Roaring Rapids during a Tornado. The temp outside was like 95, and it was hot and sticky out. The sky began to get really dark and green, we shut down the ride and began evacuating the line. I came across one lady who was pissed that we were evacuating the line and wanted to know why. I told her and she was like so. Now the lady was in her 30's, not to bright if you ask me. She eventually left after confrontation because we wouldn't let her ride. Unbelievable.

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BMCOASTER

bmcoaster@wi.rr.com *** This post was edited by BMCOASTER on 6/18/2001. ***

It seems like every time I go to CP it rains really hard or storms really bad. I have had like one trip where it didn't do either.

The '98 trip we had just sat down for the Summer Spectacular when a lighting bolt came really close if no hit Power Tower. Everybody screamed and then the rain started. We ran to the dodgems and waited there. Then we finally started towards the front of the park by runnig from awning to awning. We stopped at the Pizz Patio and talked to a woman for about 5 min. and when the rain let up a little we took off running for the parking lot. As we passed the ball fountain the water was a couple of inches below the lip of the fountain. A lot of the shops were flooding. I remember the Hattitude people were pushing water out of the shop and picking up stuff off the ground. As we passed the speakers that are in the flower beds we heard that there was a tornado waring for the county CP is in, Erie?. It was very scarywhile at the same time cool, and something I'll remember forever.

The very next day we went to Put-in-Bay. While we were up at the top of Perry's Monument a storm rolled in. It was so cool, I like storms. You could see the rain start falling at what seemed like the same height we were at. The water turned white and choppy. We got in the elevator and got to the bottom and stood in the opening at the bottom.

My stepdad was at CP the day the tornado hit the CCMR and Frontier town. He was on the causeway in a van. He said that his whole family was screaming and the van was tipping up onto two wheels. The funny thing was that one of the women (not sure on the relation) wanted to get out of the van.

I'm done now.

When I was young we almost never went to Adventureland in Iowa because it seemed that every time that we went it rained the entire day or most of it. It is the reason that I never got the chance to ride the Tornado wood coaster. They would always shut it down for the rain and not open it back up for the rest of the day. I can remember one time being stuck in a que house at the river rapid ride and visibly seeing a small tornado out amongst the fields ripping away the rows of corn. Another story includes a few of my freinds during a school trip in junior high that were actually stopped on the lift hill of the tornado during a storm /tornado warning in wich they took a few pictures of tornados that started to funnel but didn't make it to the ground after the rain and wind passed they were walked back down the lift hill. Not that I like to cheat death but that would have been fun assuming you lived through it. I was tucked away in a gift shop for that one.
But one quick point. The tornado at Adventureland was named the tornado because a tornado destroyed the ride that use to take up the spot where the coaster is.

Feel_the_Force, do you know the exact date that storm at CP was? I was there June 20-21 that year and it stormed that night. I remember hearing something about Power Tower being hit.

I was sitting at the Bay Harbour restaurant during the storm and I remember that the Summer Spectacular was going on after the storm hit.

Very scary day at the Po!nt.

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-Eric
www.TheAmazementPark.com
"If everything seems undercontrol, you're not going fast enough!"
*** This post was edited by IrOnDrAGoN24 on 6/18/2001. ***

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Grant said:
"I wonder what they'd do at SFWOA! The safety and staff are so bad there they'd probably tell everyone to climb up the spikes of Superman!

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May/June 2001 - 16 parks in 18 days!!!"

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so true ;)

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Rollercoasters are the secret of life!

http://www.woodencoaster.com

B&M Fan.. WE were in the middle of the Que line..lol. My 12 year old made like a sprinter over the rails and beat all 3 of us to the restrooms.. man they were crowded. if i would have known to go under the ride i would have! Once again Great job!!

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I love the American Eagle at SFGRAM!!!!