What is your storm story?

After all the reports of major storms at some parks ( my thoughts and prayers go out to those injured and killed in the trajedy at Kennywood) I was wondering what is everybody's story of when they were at a park and got hit by a storm.

Well I was at Carowinds about 2 years ago with my friend. We were haveing a good time when it started to rain. We rain toward Wings and it started hailing. The hail hurt realy bad and the wind started to pick up. We got to Wings and the rocking chairs outside were blowing out into the miday! There was also a broken window there (probably from hail). We struggles inside and stayed there the rest of the storm. It stopped and we headed towards Waynes World and it started up again. We sat under the awning at the Rock Shop and watched the wind and lightning. Lightning was coming pretty close and we thought Drop Zone was gonna get hit! After about a half hour is calmed down and we left. I will never forget that day.

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800,000 years in 7 seconds: Time Machine the movie or next S&S creation?

During 2000 while at Cedar Point I had gotten off work at 6 and was planning on riding coasters untill my ride home got off at 11.I clocked out and changed clothes and decided to hit Gemini(at this time the clouds were looking mighty bad)and by the time I got to Magnum it started to storm so needless tosay I could not hit anyhting else and it kept up untill about 30 min. untill the park closed.About 15 min. later they opened the rides up and i managed to get 3 rides on Raptor in before closing.(this storm kept up for about 4 straight hours).

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"Huzzah"

One time, while in line for Rolling Thunder @SFGAm, there was an announcment that there would be severe wheather and a possible tornado. We waited the line out, rode the ride, and got insidea restaurant just as the downpour began. Took a good 2 hours for the storm to pass over the park.

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Zakk Wylde's Black Label Society-Chicago Chapter

Stark Raven Mad a few years ago. In the middle of ERT on Raven, Tornados decided to drop in. We all took cover in a giftshop built into the side of a hill. We weree in there for an hour or two and then back to the Raven.....what a wild night. And I had a sprained ankle too. This was the first stop of my 10-day coaster trip.
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-Matt in Iowa
193 coasters ridden -- #1 Shivering Timbers
Just say no to Gerstlauer!

My story comes from 1994 when I was working at the Zinger (RIP) at WOF. We knew the storm was coming and had already shut down the rides. Co workers and myself were standing in front of Zulu looking up at the green sky. It had just started getting dark when the tornado sirens went off. I yelled at my friends (who had walked away) to come back. At that moment, a group of guests came running at us asking where they should go. A few followed me to the Zinger tunnel and the rest went to the valley behind Plunge. There were 60-70 guests in the tunnel and about 5 employees. We were checking to see if everyone was ok, as one women had fallen and broken her leg getting down to the tunnel and another had gone into labor. I had to yell at 2 guys whe decided they were too tired to stand and sat on the track. Some people don't understand that electricity travels well through metal. The storm ended up bypassing the park. I wish I could say the same for my house. The woman who's leg was broke was still quite thankfull and the baby decided to wait till it got to the hospital to make it's appearance.

Probably the most eventful storm story I have of my 5 years at WOF.

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wof fan

A couple of years ago I was in KC, and planned to go to Worlds Of Fun. Right as I got to the park, it started pouring. It was my last day in KC, and I was determined to go to the park, as I had never been. So, I made a phone call to a friend in St. Louis, who I knew had high speed internet service. I had her go to the Weather Channel website and check the radar maps to give me an idea how long the storm would last. She said that is was a small isolated storm, and that it would probably clear up within the hour.

So I bought my ticket in the pouring rain, much to the surprise of the girl at the ticket booth. Found shelter, and waited out the storm. Within a 1/2 hour, the rain stopped, and about a 1/2 hour later, the rides reopened. By this time, everyone else had left the park. The rest of the day was sunny and beautiful, and all the rides were a walk on. :)

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Current favorite coasters:
Wooden: 1) Beast 2) Raven 3) Son of Beast 4) The Boss 5) Timber Wolf
Steel: 1) Raging Bull 2) Millennium Force 3) V2 4) Wild Thing 5) Mr. Freeze
Visit: http://www.dynamicgroove.com

*** This post was edited by Joe Carroll on 6/1/2002. ***

I'd have to throw in Rip Roarin' Rampage last year. Around 5 that evening horrific storms rolled in that spawned several tornadoes in the area. The only other one that I can think about would be Lone Star Coasterthon last year. During ERT on Titan, Mother Nature delivered one of the most awesome lightning storms I've ever seen. No rain or bad weather, just extreme lightning.

I was working at Camp Snoopy at CP in 2000 and there was one day where it rained and stormed all day long. It was very cold and there was hardly anyone visiting the park( I think I remember only three guests on the Tilt-o-whirl all day). We where so bored at one point all of the CS ride opps, including me, were doing the YMCA dance and pouring bottled water over our heads. Even the bad times at CP are fun.

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Tomorrow's a mystery, yesterday is history, and today is a gift and that's why it is called the present.

I've got some. Back in the early 90s, we were at CP (we being the 7th and 8th graders from our school) for a class trip. I think I was in 8th grade at the time, however, rules on the field trip stated that we had to leave at 8pm, unless the driver you were with wanted to stay til close (10pm). Being as how my parents drove, we left at 8. While still on the causeway...the heavens opened up. You could not see in front of you, plus it was fairly dark as well. It was a thrill that no coaster could ever top. Thankfully I didn't have to drive in that ever.

Lats year, Mother Nature shafted me by spewing up a storm just minutes before I was to board the front seat on Raptor. I was two loads away from going on when the ride-ops saw lightning in the distance, let the one train go and then closed the ride. The storm didn't hit until about 10 minutes later when I was at McD's getting food for the ride home.

And yet Mother Nature threw a decent curve during the first year of Millennium Mania. At CP with my sister, we had made one pass of every ride (she opted not to ride MF, something that quickly changed however) within an hour when the rains hit. We ducked inside Coasters ( I think that's the name of it...the one with the classic car outside) and waited the rain out. Seems that half the crowd didn't want to deal with rain, so they left making the walk-ons that much better.

At CP during Physics Day in 2000. MF was down, probably because of Physics Day. Weather was crappy all day. At one point it did storm so I ducked inside Silver Dollar Cafe with my dad and ate lunch. I was at the park on my own, but knew my dad was drivng some kids from my alma mater (alonng with my brother) for Physics Day, so I decided to meet up with him. The Physics students left at 6 and would you guess what opened?? As I crested the hill on Mantis, MF showed signs of life. I get in line...50 minutes later I'm between the two stations. Rain delay twice for 10 minutes each...thankfully I had a poncho. Got in the station, in the seat, belt fastened, lap bar down and...had to get out. Lightning was spotted. Waited for that to go away, then enjoyed a world class coaster.

Sometimes a little rain and lightning is good.

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Not all coasters can be B&M smooth...GET OVER IT
Thrillnetwork member (CedarPoint_Mark)

Kentucky kingdom 1998 or 99 i forget witch

Was riding there vampire (I think) Coaster and we rode and got off. there was an announcement that the ride would close due to Storms. When we got off the sky got really nasty and we had to take cover under a Umbrella. After the storm cleared we had many re-rides on Twisted Twins(sisters) We also got a re-ride fest on chang.

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There seems to be some confusion about Me. I am not a 17 year old male. I am a 21 year old male. Steve Wilkerson.
GAAP opens june 6th! err now its the 7th. ^_^
Visit this classic park!

Last year at Six Flags Great Adventure we got stuck in a thunderstorm, all the rides closed, so we took cover in an arcade. The arcade was packed, so we decided to play some games. A few minutes later, the power went out, and everyone playing the games lost their money. It sucked, and we left then a few minutes later because they weren't going to reopen the rides.

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Planned parks: Astroland, Knoebel's, Hersheypark, SFNE, SFGadv,SFGam,CP,PKI,PKD,PCW,HW,Indiana Beach,SFWOA,SFKK,SFDL,SFSTL,Lakemont,DelGrosso's... Need I say more?

At sfa a month or two ago we were on superman and it started raining real hard and about 20 minutes later there was hail and thunder. It went buy fast so they didnt close any rides. 10 miles up the rode there was a real big tornado and then two more by were i live. Not the smartest move sfa!

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When you go to bgw don't go in festhaus,IT"S SCARY AS HELL!

My last year at the Point I was walking up the main midway (away from the train station towards the Cedars gate) and one of those sneaky Lake Erie squalls hit without warning. You could tell that it wasn't expected as the Giant Wheel was still running. Got pelted with hailstones the size of quarters. Sent people scattering for whatever cover they could find, which wasn't much at that end of the park at that time.

When I went to SWO in summer of 2001, we were about to get on Kraken when a voice came over the loudspeaker said Kraken may have to close due to inclement weather approaching the area. The guy at the entrance said to go anyways, so we did. We got on within 5 minutes and going up the lift you could see an approaching storm. After we got off Kraken, the skies opened up. It was pouring and hailing. We took shelter in the gift shop at the front of the park. When the rain let up, we ran across the street to our hotel and had a great day (a little wet though) at BGT the next day.

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Let's see - 4 Tornados in 6 years while working at SFGAM. 2 in 93 - PITCH Black Skiesat 3:00 pm, Tornado in the parking lot, people complaining about being kicked out of the line at Roaring Rapids (90 + degrees out) Hiding under the Trun Table at Rapids to avoid the storm.

1 in like 95, 1 in 97. This was crazy The Tornado touched down in the parking lot in front of Shockwave or something. I was leaving work for the day. Thank god.

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BMCOASTER

bmcoaster@wi.rr.com

Both 2000 and 2001 trips to The Point just happened to have rain forcasted. We made the trip anyway. It payed off big time. Most people stayed at home and most of the rides were walk ons. About 15 to 20 min. for Millennium, 5min for Raptor. We had a downpour each time that only lasted a few minutes. Those two trips to the point were the best ones that I have ever had. We rode everyting so many times, we kinda ran out or things to ride. So we went back to the Millennium again.

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Get to the Point

I was at SFoG when it started raining then lightly hailing. The rain picked up so bad that they closed every ride in the park. On that wonderful day I got to ride nothing. No coasters, flat rides, or anything. It is a good thing I am a six flags season pass holder or I might have been more upset. :(

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