Plenty of ski resorts have huge turnover year to year, just like Disney they rely a lot on college students and recent grads, and Disney did hire from the ski industry as well so it wasn’t all new to the entire cast.
IMHO, they are using the wrong equipment. Fire trucks aren't that quick and require a lot of people to operate. They aren't designed to go up and down, up and down, over and over again. They should have a fleet of Telescopic Boom Lifts with an army of people trained on how to use them.
Isn't the RCFD part of the Disney owned/controlled municipal corporation?
They could've put a secondary loop at Riveria on the side of the inside and outside of the corner. It would've made the foot print much bigger and more complex, though.
Yeah, it's Disney's city, but it is still a city.
No, I’m saying that logistically if it’s a pass through (aka midline) then you can’t detach / attach a gondola. But again, my knowledge is maybe only 1% better than a bus driver’s and 20% worse than a boat captain’s.
Except we do know based off of what the RCFD and people involved have said. Reps for the RCFD firefighters have said that this incident used up all their resources plus back up from the sheriff departments of Orange and Osceola counties and that it would have been catastrophic if anything else had happened that night that needed the RCFD or if this had happened at noon. (The Orlando Sentinel articles with this are linked upthread.)
I agree with this. It shouldn’t automatically be assumed that last night’s response is exactly how a response on a midsummer afternoon would go. But that is immediately where everyone’s heads went, once it was confirmed no one was seriously hurt—“Omg, but what if it had been July?!” And that is the question Disney will have to answer. Even if last night went exactly as planned and all decisions made were measured and intentional, folks are going to want to know how an even more emergent incident would be handled.
So - maybe some of the boat captains on this thread can help - RIV is at a turn, but does this link below mean gondolas *can* be added? Now that I look at it, maybe.
The only thing we were being told in the gondolas through the speakers was that there was a “temporary delay” And “thank you for your patience. We had access to social media. We had seen the pictures of the collided cars. I would have much preferred to hear something like “There is a blocked line at the Riviera station that has halted the gondola system for the time being. We are working to clear the line and we will keep you updated.” Additionally, the speaker in our cabin was very staticky and cut out a couple times, so the few times they did give a new message, like when they told us we could open the emergency kits, it was difficult to make out what was said.
We pressed the emergency button in our cabin about halfway through because one person was having a panic attack - shaking, breathing too fast, feeling numb in her fingers, etc. We told them this, and they just made a generic comment that they were working on resolving the situation and then the speaker cut-off mid-sentence and they never spoke directly to us again. They did not connect us with any medical personnel for advice. They did not check back with us through the speaker at any point. We never even saw anyone on the ground looking up at our gondola to try to figure out how to evacuate us or anything like that. (We were over water, so we would have needed a special evacuation method.) Thankfully, another person in our cabin had experienced panic attacks before and was able to help - I don’t know what would have happened if no one in our car had known how to best help her slow down her breathing and try to get through the panic attack.
I don't know how it was at other locations, but my car was close to the Epcot station and there was someone at the platform handing out the gift cards and tickets as we got onto the platform. We did not have to ask. They also took the information for a point of contact for our group. They also provided my group with a hotel room and sleepwear because we had driven in for a day trip from a couple hours away - the gondola ride had been the last thing we had planned to do before heading home.
Read reality world. When Disney bought the land there was nothing there they needed all the services that government normally provides. Reedy Creek is basically a quasi government entity sort of controlled by Disney which controls the town of Bay Lake and its 7 residents or whatever it is it actually has a mayor. A total aside, but interesting history for the Disney fan. RCID actually tends to have building codes that exceed those if the surrounding area.
