Report: Skyliner Shutdown Strained Walt Disney World Rescue Resources
Last night, everyone was happy to hear that everyone was off the Skyliner. But Sunday, in the light of day, Disney guests and fans sought answers that simply weren’t available.
Rescue Operations at Walt Disney World Strained Resources
In a thorough report for The Orlando Sentinel, Gabrielle Russon explained:
Disney World wouldn’t say Sunday what went wrong after its week-old gondolas shut down Saturday night, trapping people for three hours and prompting a rescue operation that Disney firefighters said took all hands on deck.
The ordeal was captured in real-time on social media. Photos emerged of cable cars that appeared to have collided at the Disney’s Riviera Resort station. Disney declined to comment and hasn’t said when the Disney Skyliner that takes visitors to Epcot and Hollywood Studios from several resorts will reopen again.
Firefighters for Disney’s pseudo-government agency Reedy Creek got the call at 8:27 p.m. Saturday and ended up evacuating six cars from the line, said union secretary Ryan O’Reilly.
The call, which lasted until around midnight, took up “all of the available manpower or most of the available manpower” at the Reedy Creek fire department and back-up assistance from the sheriff departments at Orange and Osceola counties, O’Reilly said. He counted 27 Reedy Creek fire personnel on the scene.
“If anything else would have been going on [at Disney] at that moment, it could have been catastrophic,” O’Reilly said, repeating firefighters’ past concerns that they are understaffed as Disney World continues to expand.
Firefighters Call for More Personnel
reedycreek.org
Remember, Reedy Creek firefighters are locked in a dispute with Walt Disney World’s pseudo-governmental body, looking for more resources; namely more firefighters.
“We have the equipment,” said Timothy Stromsnes, president of the Reedy Creek Professional Firefighters to the Sentinel last June. “We just don’t have the people.”
reedycreek.org
And last night, with guests stuck in the air for three hours, that concern surely felt omnipresent.
Russon added:
Firefighters used high-rise trucks, which O’Reilly said aren’t staffed 24/7, although they didn’t need to use ropes or a barge on the water to rescue anyone.
Nobody was seriously injured, he said.
“It may have been a different story if that thing broke out down at noon,” O’Reilly said.
A Disney World spokeswoman said Sunday the company is investigating what led to “the unexpected downtime” and would not provide more information.
Strained Nerves, Lack of Information
The Sentinel reporter also spoke to guests, and she reported that stranded visitors used various methods to pass the time and deal with the nerves of sitting in their gondola cabins.
Danielle Perera called Disney’s customer service phone number, but no one there would give them any more information on what happened or when they’d get freed.
The comfort and the real-time information, instead, came from social media.
“Anyone else stuck?” Perera posted on a Facebook passholder group with 40,000 members.
He got more than 500 comments back, including from some who were also stranded.
“Y’all deserve … Dole Whipand a Mickey bar!” one woman wrote. “All the ice creams!”
Certainly, the Pereras deserve more than that. And fans of the Disney Parks expect an explanation for the incident, which occured just six days into the Disney Skyliner’s service.
