A Question About Whats In The Lake??

[McArcDes]

Rob, Maybe you should read my posts a little closer. I have never said I have held a permenant position at Imagineering. I said that I was working there in '98. I held a summer internship between writing my thesis proposal and the two semesters of design review. But the real facts would not be important to you.....

Let me ask you a question. How many things have you designed at WDW while you are... let me see an attractions host??? I have acutally gotten two projects I designed during my internship built. One a recreation room on the Imagineering builing at Epcot and the other the enclosure to conceal the back of the popcorn cart in Safari Village at Animal Kingdom. Not huge mega projects but I designed them and they got built just the same. I also was project manager for the Sam Adams History of Beer presentation that was located at the American Adventure druing the Food and Wine Festival last October and November. I did this while working for a architectural firm here in Boston.

It has been my hope that a fuill time position would become available at Imagineering but to make a long story sort they have had nothing but hiring freezes and layoffs since '98.

I have backed everything I say with facts all you can do is say is " I am right and you are wrong"

At this point I am going to leave this ing contest and leave you to your blissful ignorance. Good luck to you. You are going to need it.

 

[disneyisbest]

It could be a knockout folks!

 

[RobFL]

I did present facts.. No one will listen to me or go look up anything about sinkholes.

Go.. look.. all the sources say the same thing I do..

And another thing.. The utiladors don't cover the entire lower level of MK. There are spaces inbetween the tunnels which could have problems with erosion.

I admit I don't know exactly what is up with the lagoon, but I know what i've been told about the water keeping the slabs from further deterioration and the sinkholed area leading to the Tea Cups..

But to be told I don't know anything about sinkholes or FWE (which is the sinkhole prone area) is offensive.

-Rob

 

[Javier&Christie]

Rob.. you keep talking about sinkholes in the MK, but you are completely missing the point that McArcDes is trying to make. MK is built 14ft. over the regular sea level. Over the top of the utilidors.. if sinkholes were to form, they would have to happen under the utilidors.. not the MK.

I'm going w/ McArcDes on this one.. his facts are well thought out and make 100% sense.

 

[dizneykev]

Ok, I do not claim to be an architectual engineer, or a geo-physicist, but I can try to put what has been said in lamens terms.

First of all, the entire area below the magic kingdom is not covered by utilidors. Obviously, when they desined the "tunnels", they are just that, burrows which go to specific areas of the park and not to others. Otherwise, you would have the entire Magic Kingdom exisitng on nothing but a series of stilts. I would assume that the areas that are not the utilidors do have some structural re-enforcements, but it may just consist of earth that was piled up.
Now, let's try to describe a sink hole. I went out and read 20-30 websites concerning this issue and think I have a firm grasp on how they actually work. Let's say you have an area of land with a pocket of water lying somewhere below this. Think of it as a pool of water beneath the layer of rock. Over the years, the moving water slowly erodes at the bottom of the rock until it is very thin. The area that used to be rock is now water. This water is held tightly in this pocket by the surrounding rock walls of the "pool". The land above is being partially supported by this water (Like a boat on the ocean). In a time when the ground water somehow gets moved out of this pocket, the earth above loses part of it's support structure. If this loss of support is more than the surrounding land can "hold together", the earth will fall into the hole. It does not work on a structural property to water, but works on the displacement of water.
In previous posts, our "imagineer" said he would not like to be in a building which uses water as it's main support. Has he ever been in a boat, or a cruis ship. They use water as the one and only support to keep the "building" up.
Whether or not the sink holes actual exist under the magic Kingdom is still a question, and personally I can't imagine that lagoon holding enough water to make a diffrence, but the fact is that sink holes do in fact exist throughout the US.
Like I said, I question man's ability to keep a sink hole from eventually collapsing unless they fill the area that holds water with something more substantial. In my old hometown, we had a football stadium which was built over an underground well (very similar to a sink hole). What they had to do to stabilize the structure was to fill the void of rock (which contained water) with some structural material (concrete), This was not brain surgery. As the concrete went in, it displaced the water and it came out. Eventually the concrete filled the entire void and the problem was solved. I am sure Disney has someone who knows this as well and if they needed to fix these voids it could be done with very simple methods.

Just my 2 cents worth.

Dizneykev :sohappy:

 

[DBF John]

Seems that a "Slurry Wall" technique could be used to fix potential problems.

 

[CrashNet]

Originally posted by RobFL
*sigh*

Do i have to bring you a vile of the water from under UoE?

Some people.. jeeze..

-Rob

All I can say is if you are right and there are sinkholes that are being filled with water to keep the buildings above them from collapsing, anyone of us and anyone else who has read this thread or knows about the issue and has been to Disney World could legally sue the company for Personal Endangerment in a Public Facility, no matter WHEN they were last at Disney World. All they would have to prove is the age of the sinkhole(s), and there would be no way to lose.

 

[CrashNet]

Originally posted by RobFL



You're still denying how a sinkhole forms and functions. Have you read up on that?

The water is held in the bottom of the bag the same way a sinkholes cavern is kept full by the water table's level. It can't and wont go down during that period, but if it does receed... poof.. no more land above the sinkhole.

Funny, McArc.. why would a Disney imagineer come to a Disney fansite? Seems like odd behavior to me.. and then on top of it, I've never seen or heard of you on any of the professional design boards. Do you just not know how to get to those....?

Seriously dude.. you can beleive me or not.. try reading about sinkholes before you spout BS here. The ground water can have "pockets" from oh.. i dunno.. years of errossive effects from a certain man made lake attaction.

Anyways, you're wrong and I personally could careless. I actually left this thread to prevent further hardshipp.. but screw it. I bet you were head of the secretarial department if anything at WDI.

-Rob

Sinkholes aren't that big of a deal. I learned everything you have mentioned about them in sixth grade. What he is trying to get you to understand is that the water in a sinkhole can only stay there because the sinkhole acts like the plastic bag, holding the water in. What you aren't taking into account though is that a plastic bag cannot absorb water. Dirt can, making it unstable, causing erosion. The only reason why the water would receed is if its container, the sinkhole, fell apart.

Basically, you are right. But there are many more factors you have to consider. McArcDes is talking about the long term effects. You are talking about the short term effects. Yes air is not as dense as water, so theoretically is would not hold up dirt as well as water. What McArcDes is trying to say is that it is not a permanent solution. The water is constantly being pumped into the sinkhole because the water is eroding the dirt away and making the sinkhole larger. It won't hold a building up forever, as clearly shown with Horizons. They waited to long, and had to sacrifice the building as a result.

 

[Sketch105]

Alright. I know nothing about sinkholes or whose right in this debate of whether the 20,000 Leagues lagoon can be emptied or not, or what went wrong with Horizons. All I know is that if they had used the Horizons building for Space, they could have avoided the costly ADA requirements to upgrade the building since it was an attraction built before ADA requirements were enforced (of course, this was from Laughingplace.com, so take it with a grain of salt.)

As for 20,000 Leagues:
1.) Has it ever had a "dry rehab", much like the Rivers of America and Splash Mountain?

2.) Does anybody have an outline of the attraction layout?

3.) Speaking of which, if they're not using the show building, why not demolish it? Are they trying to utilize it for the next attraction (whatever that may be?)

4.) And finally, does anybody know why some of the subs were painted red before they pulled the plug?

I know somebody mentioned the DL version. The DL version closed not because of sinkholes or anything. They just did not want to staff and operate an attraction whose costs became too expensive. Same with 20k at MK.

 

[BalooChicago]

In most jurisdictions when you make alterations to an existing building beyond a certain percentage of the replacement value of that building it must be made ADA compliant. I would highly doubt that Disney would be able to get around it, much less chance the possibility of negative publicity for spending an inordinate amount of money on a building and not making it accessible.

 

[Horizons1]

Yes it has had a dry rehab.There are pics of it on disneypix.com

 

[jmarc63]

Hey Guys maybe I could shed some light on the Utilidors.

First I was wondering if anyone has the book from WDW called " The story of Walt Disney World. If you look on Page 36 of the 1977 printing of the book there are five Pictures. If you look at the center Picture it shows the foundation for the castle and at the top of the photo you can clearly see the top(roof) of the Utilidors. I compared this photo with the map of the utilidors and as disney kev said there are not tunnels everywhere under MK, it appears that there is a tunnel ringing MK , and a tunnel going North/South from Main Street station area under the plaza down mainstreet , under the central plaza and Cinderellas Castle back to FantasyLand to meet up with the northern portion of the outer tunnel at that intersection there are many room for essential services for MK such as Costuming , "DACS" ( the brains for the attractions) and cafeterias this appears to be the main area of the utilidors, It looks like 20k is sitting above that area or there are tunnels going around the lagoon for it, there is also a small area of rooms under the Main Street area as well.

In the Photo you can clearly see there is a large area of Utilidor under the Fantasyland Area under where the walkways are now. and it appears that the attraction Buildings are built on the fill. McArdes says that the fill is 14ft above the Utilidors, Accually in the photo you can see that it is about four or five ft above the utilidors. In a rare photo I have seen of the inside of the Utilidors it appears that they are around maybe 10 ft in heighth and the fill is 14ft above the original grade that would give you a four or five feet of fill over the Utilidors, this area butts up to the basement on the backside (Fantasy Land) of the castle. there is a close up of this area durring construction at the top of page 36. I wish I could find more construction photos of WDW durring the construction phase to back this up. I invite you to check it out for your self.

 

[Sketch105]

Originally posted by BalooChicago
In most jurisdictions when you make alterations to an existing building beyond a certain percentage of the replacement value of that building it must be made ADA compliant. I would highly doubt that Disney would be able to get around it, much less chance the possibility of negative publicity for spending an inordinate amount of money on a building and not making it accessible.

I'm no lawyer. I'm just re-iterating what I heard. Basically, they would pass off the new attraction as the same building, creating a loophole. Why else would they try to re-incorporate the Horizons building into the Mission Space design? To save money thats why!

That was basically the gist of the article I read on it.

 

[BalooChicago]

I'm no lawyer either. (I don't even play one of TV) I am however working towards licensure as an Architect (I am completing my third year of Internship). I work for one of the largest architecture firms in Chicago. I've worked on numerous rennovations, and they had to be brought up to ADA standards. For further research you may wish to visit the Florida Building Code http://www.sbcci.org/Florida Building Code/changed/ch-11/Sec 11-4.pdf which states that "A facility that is making alerations must comply with this section to the maximum extent feasible." and that "Alterations made to provide an accessible path of travel to altered areas shall be deemed disproportionate to the alteration when the cost exceeds 20 percent of the cost of the alteration to the primary function area." I'm guessing that 20% of the cost to rennovate the Horizons Building into Mission Space would have allowed them to have gold plated ramps and diamond studed detectable warnings.

 

[Sketch105]

Thanks for clearing that up. Love the "play one on tv" gag. clever.

 

[DonickCo]

Thought this might help

 

[DBF John]

Thats a very good try DonickCo, what we REALLY need is a pic of the Wall Map from the Utilidors, there is a typical tunnel map and an OVERLAY map of the park.

 

[jmarc63]

Great overlay pic Dinic

 

[DBF John]

ºOº

 

[Eeyore]

Just a friendly reminder to everyone- please try to keep your debates mature and civil. Sink holes and utilitdors shouldn't been made into personal issues.