Monorail Evacuation Today

Well, as many of you know, there was a monorail evacuation exercise today.

I'll tell you as much as I feel I can, but again I'm going to withhold some detail for security reasons.

To start off, I woke up at 2:00 to get ready for the event. I arrived at about 3:00 and the exercise began(ish) at 3:30. They asked for four volunteers to start off. I raised my hand with a few others and was selected for the assignment. We didn't know what the assignment was, but we quickly learned that we should not have raised our hands.

We loaded in a van and headed to the Epcot. We were going to open up the Monorail station. Perhaps they should have said what we were going to do. I work in buses. Another volunteer currently works in watercrafts. The other two were night shifts and frankly haven't opened up a station since before me!

Anyway, we were driving from the Ticket Transportation Center and got off for Epcot. And we missed the gate. All of us were quietly asking the driver (a monorail coordinator) "Um, where are we going?" "Aren't we opening the Epcot Monorail station?" "Isn't the gate back there?" and the sort.

As it turns out, we entered through a back entrance. We drove backstage for a bit and actually entered the park in our massive van though the gate at Test Track. The point of us being in the park was to visually check the monorail beam throughout the park for obstructions. We drove all over ALL OVER Future World. Universive of Energy, through Innoventions East and around the tear drop (around the dancing fountain towards World Showcase).

Now it was time to head west towards The Seas with Nemo and Friends and such. They were doing some cleaning in that breezeway at Character Spot. They had moved some benches and the van was almost scraping the mirrors on one side against the Character Spot windows while the tires were only inches away from the temporarily located benches. That was a little intensive. We moved into the west around Imagination, past the Land, and around the Seas pavillion before heading back.

Driving under Spaceship Earth, we exited the park through the turnstiles. There was a security guard stationed there who looked almost in shock to see a group of young adults pilling out of a white van inside the park. Oh, I should probably mention that we were not in costume except for the monorail pilot. Anyway, we walked up to the station where a pressure-washing crew was just finishing their work.

Well, we started up the power, checked all the safety features of the station and did a safety check on the train in the station, Monorail Green. As we started the checklists, something occurred to me. All of the important big-wigs will be at this exercise. Monorail Green is slated to be the "rescue monorail". It was very nerve-racking. Here I am preparing for an emergency with the watchful eyes of a lot of important persons and I haven't done it in about three months!

Well, we got the station up and running and dispatched the train. About ten minutes later Monorail Orange arrived with 20 plus monorail pilots also participating in the drill. Slowly, all of the other major players arrived in the station. We were given our scenerio from the Manager of Emergency Management for Walt Disney World. Here's what was going on:

"Monorail Orange suffers a fire in Car Six and all fire extinguishers in the car do not operate properly. Due to abnormal circumstances on and around the beam, it is impossible for the monorail to return to Epcot or continue on to the TTC station."

Many of the emergency responders had never executed this type of exercise before and the goal for the morning was not necessarily speed but getting things right.

Normally, a monorail experiencing problems will go to the next monorail station for assistance. It is also possible to bring out a work tractor to tow the train (which is a lenghty process if done accurately) or to evacuate onto the roof of the train and be transported to the ground via ladder firetrucks. However, the roof evacuation is extremely risky and dangerous. Many monorail beams run very close to another beam and it is possible to bring another train alongside the disabled train and transfer guests from one train to the other.

That would be our fate. Go from one train to another out on the beam.

So, we leave the Epcot Monorail Station and experience "technical difficulties" near the toll plaza. So there we were. We used the emergency phones to contact the pilot with a head count of persons in the car and a status on those people (should anyone require medical or special assistance). A whole series of events was put into motion, but let's stick to what happened out on the beam.

Monorail Orange was just sitting there with all of us inside. Monorail Green pulled up a short time later with firemen in the cars. They had with them portable bridges. After they stopped the monorail and removed power from the beam, the manually opened the doors on Monorail Green using a special key (no, it is not possible to open the doors yourself).

Meanwhile, firemen used a ladder truck to board Monorail Orange on its roof. There was some banging on the roof as the firefighters entered the cars using the roof hatch.

I'm going to pause for a second to explain that this was not done nearly as quickly as I typed it. All of this was a very lengthy process. It took some of the cars a little while to figure out how exactly to open the doors and keep them open. It also took a while to set up the ladder truck and raise personnel onto the roof. Again, they were making sure to do things right, not necessarily quickly. We're talking well over an hour (close to 90 minutes) for everything to be done, including some things I haven't mentioned yet.

Also, because this was not an actual emergency but a simulated one, more emphasis was put on preserving the magic. For example, not everyone responded with lights and sirens because that puts another risk factor on the road. Anyone driving fast creates a dangerous condition. Frankly, emergency vehicles with lights creates something of a danger themselves when in motion because people are either distracted by them or may miss them entirely. That's sometimes why you see a police car going pretty fast down the street but without sirens. They are responding to a call, but it's not life-threathening so no need to endanger anyone else.

Plus, like I said, this wasn't a real emergency so they didn't want to cause any unnecessary cosmetic or structural damage to anything (landscaping, monorails, whatever). In a real emergency it wouldn't be a big deal if the ramps scrap up the floors or firefighters put little dings in the paint due their bulky equiptment. So things were taken a little bit slower and extra precautions were taken to ensure the trains were ready for guests later that day.

Okay, back to the train. After the rescue persons entered the train they got a head count and checked the medical condition of everyone. Once the situation was assessed, they opened up the doors facing Monorail Green, the rescue train. A bridge was then deployed between the two trains, complete with hand rails! The firefighters were strapped to the train and the bridge was also secured.

Here comes the big moment. The reason I woke up at 2:00 in the morning. The reason I was so excited that I got almost not sleep whatsoever the night before. The entire reason we were all there.

I took two steps and went from Monorail Orange into Monorail Green.

That was it. The firefighters were extremely careful to have a strong grip on me the entire way across. We were pretty high off the ground. I estimate, based on the clearance marker some distance away, that we were 35, maybe 40 feet in the air. The distance between the two trains was maybe six feet, probably less.

Safely aboard Monorail Green, we sat and watched all of the emergency equiptment shift into Monorail Orange (a much quicker process). Soon, we were given the dispatch to return to Epcot. I must say, it is a little ironic to hear the recorded speil about the glories of Spaceship Earth and Epcot after such a "tramatic event".

After returning to Epcot, we got off the train and waited. Again. This time for all of the coordinators to come back and do a quick summary right there. There are a ton of managers involved from a host of departments and agencies. The most important part of the exercise was safety. That was certainly a success as no one was injured. From what I can tell, it was a success overall as well. Granted I don't know the goal of each department for the exercise, but I did my part.

So that's what happened in the early morning hours at Walt Disney World.

I know there's not a lot of pictures to help illustrate the story, but I hope the words suffice. But I can't have no pictures at all, so here you go! Some of my favorite Monorail photos...



TTFN