Large Piece Falls off Monorail - Being Evacuated

flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
RustySpork said:
What happens when you're in a car with a fiberglass roof or a convertible with the top up that gets hit by lightning? I'll wait while you Google it. o_O

Humidity conducts and carries electricity, even at a lower potential.
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You do realize birds can sit on bare high power lines don't you? Or that lineman touch and handle high power lines? It's because of potentials - and the lack of deltas. The gondola and cable are at the same potential and the gondola does not represent a path to lower potential. Conductivity means nothing without dV
 
N

natatomic

Well-Known Member
raven said:
A checklist is simply a guide. It means nothing if the employee just checks them off because it's a mundane task to do every shift. Mistakes and oversights still happen, even at Disney. This was the reason for the monorail crash years back.

Disney Engineering CMs (maintenance) starting rate 5 years ago was $27.50/hour. In Disney pay scale that means must be extremely valuable. But a lot of them are never checked up on and they will often sleep through their entire shift or watch television instead of actually working. Many CMs over the years have witnessed this.
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As I said, we live in an imperfect world and things can get overlooked. If someone just rushed through a checklist without really looking and then something happens due to them not noticing or reporting something wrong (which I will grant you, it happens -
Disney doesn't have 70,000 perfect employees), then that's totally on their own shoulders for doing a half-@$$ job. The checklist is there because Disney expects its CMs to go by it and do it properly. That's their job and what they signed up for by accepting the role.
 
RustySpork

RustySpork

Oscar Mayer Memer
flynnibus said:
You do realize birds can sit on bare high power lines don't you? Or that lineman touch and handle high power lines? It's because of potentials - and the lack of deltas. The gondola and cable are at the same potential and the gondola does not represent a path to lower potential. Conductivity means nothing without dV
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What you're missing here is that lightning doesn't have to strike the gondola for the people in it to be affected by a lightning strike. It can strike the ground or a tree next to the gondola and discharge into the car on the way past as it's finding ground. Any potential greater than zero is still potential. If the gondola is a faraday cage, there's no problem. Ride it during a storm if you want, doesn't matter to me. :joyfull:
 
lazyboy97o

lazyboy97o

Well-Known Member
natatomic said:
As I said, we live in an imperfect world and things can get overlooked. If someone just rushed through a checklist without really looking and then something happens due to them not noticing or reporting something wrong (which I will grant you, it happens -
Disney doesn't have 70,000 perfect employees), then that's totally on their own shoulders for doing a half-@$$ job. The checklist is there because Disney expects its CMs to go by it and do it properly. That's their job and what they signed up for by accepting the role.
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Disney's expectation once was to "ride these rides to failure to save money."
 
raven

raven

Well-Known Member
natatomic said:
As I said, we live in an imperfect world and things can get overlooked. If someone just rushed through a checklist without really looking and then something happens due to them not noticing or reporting something wrong (which I will grant you, it happens -
Disney doesn't have 70,000 perfect employees), then that's totally on their own shoulders for doing a half-@$$ job. The checklist is there because Disney expects its CMs to go by it and do it properly. That's their job and what they signed up for by accepting the role.
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Understood. But being paid minimum wage for a lot of those jobs and often having management that doesn't care or even check in on their employees, you can understand how some CMs would start to slack and how these things could happen.
 
raven

raven

Well-Known Member
RustySpork said:
What you're missing here is that lightning doesn't have to strike the gondola for the people in it to be affected by a lightning strike. It can strike the ground or a tree next to the gondola and discharge into the car on the way past as it's finding ground. Any potential greater than zero is still potential. If the gondola is a faraday cage, there's no problem. Ride it during a storm if you want, doesn't matter to me. :joyfull:
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Not to mention a power failure leaving guests stranded in a stuff gondola for hours in the air.
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
RustySpork said:
What you're missing here is that lightning doesn't have to strike the gondola for the people in it to be affected by a lightning strike. It can strike the ground or a tree next to the gondola and discharge into the car on the way past as it's finding ground. Any potential greater than zero is still potential. If the gondola is a faraday cage, there's no problem. Ride it during a storm if you want, doesn't matter to me. :joyfull:
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Again... potentials. You being raised to 100MV won't hurt you. You aren't the path to ground sitting in a gondola... nor are you anywhere near the least resistant path to lower potentials. The current, not the voltage is what kills you. Current flows the least resistive path.

Its the heat generated by the resistance as the current flows that causes fires... and the em spike causing inductive failures that represent the safety issues. You are safer from the strike in the gondola than you are on the ground.
 
N

natatomic

Well-Known Member
raven said:
Understood. But being paid minimum wage for a lot of those jobs and often having management that doesn't care or even check in on their employees, you can understand how some CMs would start to slack and how these things could happen.
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Sure, to an extent. I've seen it. And some people truly flat out don't care. But people know the pay rate before they're hired, so if they make the argument "I'm not paid enough to do a 10 minute checklist correctly," then they should have never taken the job in the first place. I've worked in areas with bad managers and ones who didnt always take reports seriously. But I still did the checklist properly knowing that if anything ever happened, my properly done checklist would back me up, and it would fall on the leader who chose to ignore the warning. (Of course that sounds dramatic. I can't think of any major thing I've ever had to report that got ignored. Mostly little things like lightbulbs being out or one height stick being 1/16th of an inch too high.)
 
RustySpork

RustySpork

Oscar Mayer Memer
flynnibus said:
Again... potentials. You being raised to 100MV won't hurt you. You aren't the path to ground sitting in a gondola... nor are you anywhere near the least resistant path to lower potentials. The current, not the voltage is what kills you. Current flows the least resistive path.

Its the heat generated by the resistance as the current flows that causes fires... and the em spike causing inductive failures that represent the safety issues. You are safer from the strike in the gondola than you are on the ground.
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Yes, I know current is what kills you, 1-2 amps is all it takes to stop (and start) a heart. Sure current flows the least resistive path but that doesn't mean it doesn't jump and follow multiple paths as it dissipates. You don't have to die to be affected by a strike. Heat dissipation from lightning causing fires is simple ohms law.
 
larryz

larryz

I'm Just A Tourist!
Premium Member
So, if I'm riding the monorail and see a lightning strike on the gondola system, should I call 911, *FHP, Disney Security, or WESH?
 
flynnibus

flynnibus

Premium Member
RustySpork said:
Yes, I know current is what kills you, 1-2 amps is all it takes to stop (and start) a heart. Sure current flows the least resistive path but that doesn't mean it doesn't jump and follow multiple paths as it dissipates. You don't have to die to be affected by a strike. Heat dissipation from lightning causing fires is simple ohms law.
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Dialetric Breakdown is a concern when there are poor paths to ground available. This isn't the case here.. and you sitting in a gondola do not represent any better path for the current to go anywhere. You are a dead-end because are you are at the same potential as the rest of the gondola. Even if arcing did goto the gondola, the current will flow in the gondola structure to the grounded cable to the towers or arc to something else instead of trying to arc between the interior through you to... what? Out the windows to something outside the gondola? Arc across the gondola interior... arcing open air.. instead of flowing through the conductive gondola itself?

Please stop this foolishness.
 

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