How Rarely Does Walt Disney World Close for Hurricanes?
You may not believe this, but we are nearly four months into hurricane season. Thankfully, we’d experienced a slow season until recently.
The past 10 days have proven perilous, though. With Hurricane Fiona still wreaking havoc in Canada, Hurricane Ian is heading toward the East Coast.
Walt Disney World officials had no choice but to close the parks on September 28th and 29th to protect guests.
A weird fact about Disney is that it rarely closes. In fact, the pandemic shuttered the parks for more days than in the entire combined history of Walt Disney World before then.
How rarely does Disney close for hurricanes? The answer is almost never. Let’s take a look at the few notable exceptions.
Hurricane Elena
Here’s a remarkable statistic about Walt Disney World. The park somehow operated for nearly 28 years without a severe hurricane problem.
From 1971 through the first half of 1999, Disney officials worried about a concern that never came to pass.
When Walt Disney purchased the land for the Florida Project, he feared two aspects of this location.
One was the swamp land, which some Imagineers worried would prove too slushy for permanent construction.
The other was the weather. Even during the mid-1960s, Florida had developed a reputation as susceptible to hurricanes.
After Uncle Walt’s death, his friends at WED Enterprises remembered his stressors.
They built mighty landmarks in Orlando. Cinderella Castle can allegedly survive a hurricane, although we all hope that we never find out for sure.
Similarly, Disney dug deep into the ground to secure Spaceship Earth. Other Disney buildings are similarly structurally sound.
However, Hurricane Elena in 1985 forced park officials to reevaluate, albeit briefly.
Please remember that weather forecasts were nowhere near as advanced in the mid-1980s. At the time, everybody leaned heavily on CNN Headline News for information.
In late August of 1985, Hurricane Elena appeared certain to sweep across the entirety of Florida. Thankfully, an odd thing happened.
Elena stalled at sea and then redirected to Biloxi, Mississippi, where it made landfall. By the time it reached land, the date was already September 2nd.
Just to show how strangely this hurricane behaved, Walt Disney World had closed early on August 31st at 5 p.m. It proved to be a needless precaution.
Elena spent the body of three days terrorizing coastal residents before it ultimately touched down as a Category 3 hurricane in a different region.
Hurricane Floyd
Disney theme parks have closed or shut down early due to world events and local oddities.
The assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. and the 9/11 attack are two infamous instances where the parks closed early.
However, Walt Disney World wouldn’t shut down for a full day for a weather event until 1999.
That’s the 28-year gap I mentioned between what Disney feared about hurricane season and when it actually came to pass.
Like Elena, Hurricane Floyd sidestepped Central Florida before landing in North Carolina as a Category 2 storm.
The Bahamas will always remember Floyd as one of the most devastating hurricanes ever, though.
So, Floridians have always considered themselves lucky that Floyd moved parallel to the coast rather than heading inward.
Based on the information available at the time, Disney closed its theme parks early on September 14th and then never opened on September 15th.
By 1999, weather tracking had improved dramatically. Still, nobody could have anticipated that Floyd would behave that way.
You’ll notice the running theme with each example is that Disney errs on the side of caution to protect its guests.
2004 Hurricane Season
Since they happened during the same hurricane season, I’ll group all three of these together.
Disney faced unique weather conditions throughout 2004. The problems began with Hurricane Charley, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to touch down in Florida.
Hurricane Charley ultimately reached Category 4 after sweeping through Cuba as a Category 3. At one point, Charley’s winds registered at 150 miles per hour, an almost incomprehensible velocity.
To this day, meteorologists deem Charley one of the worst hurricanes ever to enter the continental United States.
However, Central Florida largely avoided the worst of the storm. So, Walt Disney World closed early on August 13th, and that was it.
Everyone felt incredibly lucky because a place near Key West, Florida, suffered two cyclones in a span of 24 hours.
Sadly, Disney’s good fortunes didn’t last long. Hurricane Francis arrived three weeks later. By this point, the entire Atlantic Coast was struggling.
Unwilling to make matters worse for government officials, Disney shuttered its parks on September 4th and 5th, leading to an odd historical footnote.
The parks only closed due to inclement weather twice from 1971 through August 12th, 2004. Then, they closed on three different days in three weeks.
Remarkably, that wasn’t the end of it, either. Hurricane Jeanne followed in late September. As a result, Disney closed the parks again on September 26th.
So, the parks closed due to bad weather twice in 33 years but then four times due to three hurricanes in six weeks.
The Recent Hurricanes
Hurricane Ian has already forced a longer Walt Disney World closure than any storm since Hurricane Francis.
Still, we have had other inclement weather incidents at the parks in the interim.
Hurricane Matthew reached Category 5 status at one point, which tells you everything you need to know about its devastating impact.
The United States essentially got the tail end of this one, as it didn’t strike this country with anywhere near the force that it had others.
Still, Walt Disney World closed early on October 6th and never opened on October 7th.
The following year, Hurricane Irma also turned into a Category 5 hurricane. So, technically, Walt Disney World closed longer for it than any other weather event.
The parks closed early on September 9th and never opened on September 10th or 11th. So, presuming the best, Ian won’t surpass it.
The most recent closure involved Hurricane Dorian, which MickeyBlog covered in detail at the time.
The parks closed early on September 4th, although EPCOT remained open for some reason I’ve never entirely understood.
Disney influencers published live streams that day that showed a wholly abandoned World Showcase. It was surreal.
I knew several people who stayed at Disney hotels during that situation. They universally bragged on cast members for well they handled adversity.
I expect the same this week, as Hurricane Ian challenges everyone impacted by its current trajectory.
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