Guests Injured by Falling Lamp Post

[denyuntilcaught]

Disneyland guests injured by falling lamp post

Several Disneyland guests were injured, including one who was taken to a hospital, after a lamp post on Main Street U.S.A. fell over due to high winds Monday, a Disneyland official confirmed to KTL…

ktla.com

Sounds like quite the freak accident. Sorry to hear of the injuries.

(but also - and not to make light of things - some part of me is also saying 'Lord, I see what you do for others...')

 

[CaptinEO]

Walt would be disgusted.

 

[Disstevefan1]

Wow! I would expect that at WDW, but not Walt's park.

 

[DLR92]

Is Disney keeping up with maintenance and safety? I would launch a lawsuit…

 

[SuddenStorm]

Is Disney keeping up with maintenance and safety? I would launch a lawsuit…

No they are not. How many freak accidents has the park had since it reopened?

The Fantasmic Dragon.
The New Orleans Square train water tower fire.
This.

Not to mention the shoddy craftsmanship over at the Big Hero 6 reskin.

 

[MarvelCharacterNerd]

When I was going down the escalator from the parking structure the other day, it suddenly jerked to a halt with a ton of people on it. We were all lucky we all caught hold of the railing (and no one had ignored all the signs NOT to take a stroller down the escalator as many people do anyway) since one tumbling person could have caused a scary chain reaction.

It was not fun on my knee, shoulder or back. :/

I reported it to security once I made my way down and it was still blocked off at the end of the night when I went to leave.

Same day I spotted a (non-Mickey-type) rat at the park and was surprised one of the feral cats hadn't gotten to it yet. I reported that to a CM, too, as I knew it could cause some freaking out if people spotted it unexpectedly.

 

[VJ]

No they are not. How many freak accidents has the park had since it reopened?

The Fantasmic Dragon.
The New Orleans Square train water tower fire.
This.

Not to mention the shoddy craftsmanship over at the Big Hero 6 reskin.

don't forget the tarzan's treehouse rope bridge and the piece of the matterhorn falling off

 

[mf1972]

i never posted this, but we were in epcot 3 weeks ago, taking a break on the bench in front of the tea shop in the UK pavilion. a branch from the tree behind us snapped & fell in between us. it landed closer to my wife & most of it was in the bush behind us. we were fine & had more a WTH was that reaction. a few guests asked if we’re ok, & then some of the CMs came out to see what happened. security showed up shortly after too.
it wasn’t windy that day so i can’t say what made the branch snap off like that. thankful we were fine & fellow guests & CMs checked in on us. we didn’t make a stink about it & just went on the rest of the day. we still laugh about it.

 

[King Racoon 77]

Same day I spotted a (non-Mickey-type) rat at the park.

Disney world says
"Hold ma beer"

 

[Ne'er-Do-Well Cad]

This sounds quite frightening, actually. Sincerely hope the person in serious condition makes a full, speedy recovery.

 

[CaptinEO]

Is Disney keeping up with maintenance and safety? I would launch a lawsuit…

It doesn't seem like they are given all the weird reports from ride behaviors/breakdowns post covid such as splash mountain and jungle cruise boats toppling over. I get things weren't as widely reported on pre-internet but California does get strong winds every once in a while and it's not acceptable for Main Street lamps and lighting rigs to fall over.

Disneyland has been there 60 years and this has never happened before despite California getting strong winds. Sounds like bad upkeep to me but only speculating.

 

[denyuntilcaught]

Purely speculative, but with the park's age I sense maintenance is prioritizing rehabbing versus replacing due to cost, when the latter is clearly needed more.

 

[lazyboy97o]

Purely speculative, but with the park's age I sense maintenance is prioritizing rehabbing versus replacing due to cost, when the latter is clearly needed more.

Rehabilitation doesn’t preclude replacement of parts. It’s the root of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment.

 

[denyuntilcaught]

Rehabilitation doesn’t preclude replacement of parts. It’s the root of the Ship of Theseus thought experiment.

Yep! Exactly.

 

[Phroobar]

I would not be surprised to see a death at Disneyland due to maintenance issues in the next year or two.

 

[TrainsOfDisney]

I would not be surprised to see a death at Disneyland due to maintenance issues in the next year or two.

I think Florida is in even worse shape unfortunately. It’s a shame that CEO’s can’t be held accountable for these incidents- ya know the CEO’s that cut the maintenance budgets?

And of course Eisner era was no better…. Run to the point of failure or whatever that quote was.

 

[Vegas Disney Fan]

We were in the park on Monday and we saw the lightpost after it had fallen and I’m still undecided if I think it was a maintenance issue or if it was just an unavoidable accident. From what we could see the post itself was clean, painted, no visible rust, etc. It looked to be in good shape, as often as they paint any rust or damage would have likely been on the inside where it would be impossible to see.

The scary thought is the park is nearly 70 years old, there’s probably lots of things that are decaying and rusting on the inside that look perfect on the outside since they paint so often.

 

[Castle Cake Apologist]

We were in the park on Monday and we saw the lightpost after it had fallen and I’m still undecided if I think it was a maintenance issue or if it was just an unavoidable accident. From what we could see the post itself was clean, painted, no visible rust, etc. It looked to be in good shape, as often as they paint any rust or damage would have likely been on the inside where it would be impossible to see.

The scary thought is the park is nearly 70 years old, there’s probably lots of things that are decaying and rusting on the inside that look perfect on the outside since they paint so often.

According to the site that shall not be named, the inside of the lamppost was rusting. They posted pictures as well.

 

[Lilofan]

According to the site that shall not be named, the inside of the lamppost was rusting. They posted pictures as well.

Accidents raise awareness so I’m thinking every lamp post will be inspected. ( ie college intern project )

 

[lazyboy97o]

The scary thought is the park is nearly 70 years old, there’s probably lots of things that are decaying and rusting on the inside that look perfect on the outside since they paint so often.

I wouldn’t be too worried about paint. It usually doesn’t do well to conceal damage, particularly water damage. In this case the damage was concealed by the base cover.

This looks to be rooted in a poor installation. In the photos the concrete base for the pole is not readily visible and instead it looks as though there is a layer of soil. You’d typically want the concrete base to sit above the soil so that you have separation between the moist ground and the metal pole. This is even more so in a planter because you have irrigation making the ground wet on a regular basis. There’s also a second area of significant corrosion above the grade plane where the failure occurred, possibly as a result of trapped moisture condensing under the base cover.

So the question is was this a one off or a typical condition?