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  1. #1
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    Default DLR Attractions Closed Due to Violations

    Disneyland Resort Attractions Closed Due to Safety Violations

    Three E Ticket attractions at the Disneyland Resort have been suddenly closed this weekend. The Matterhorn, Space Mountain and Soarin' Over California are now closed indefinitely, after state DOSH investigators on Friday disciplined Disneyland for the accident last November where an outside contractor cleaning the Space Mountain roof slipped and was slightly injured. The closed attractions all have at least one backstage area that don't meet the state requirement of harnessed fall protection for any employee walkway with more than a 30 inch drop opposite a hand rail. Disneyland is rushing to find quick fixes for these backstage areas this weekend to satisfy DOSH, and several other E Tickets were delayed in opening by several hours Saturday morning for inspections. The rest of the Anaheim attractions will be inspected for DOSH compliance in the next few days, and more temporary closures are possible.
    Former WDW Magic Kingdom Cast Member (2001-2010): Main Street Parades/WDWRR Engineer/Conductor; Frontierland Attractions; Tomorrowland Attractions

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  3. #2
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    Wonder if this could happen to Soarin' in WDW?


    I am all for safety, but I wonder if they had been warned on these attractions. Especially since one of them is so old...
    "That is just poor show" -Cruella DeVil

  4. #3
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    We were at the park today. The attractions mentioned were indeed closed. One CM told me that Matterhorn will be shut next week Monday to Thursday. He said it should be open for next weekend. He cited they were doing a small refurb on it. Don't know about the others. Didn't even pass by Soarin over California.

    Will be going next Saturday again. It will be interesting to see if they are still shut down.
    Marci

    Many visits. Live 20 minutes from the parks.
    Work at Universal Studios in Diagon Alley. Ollivanders/ wand magic.

  5. #4
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    "Shut down indefinitely" is a bit of an overexaggeration. You can read the actual citation online, and they have a VERY small window of time in which to remedy the violations (like, 15 days or something). If they do not fix it by then, they will be slammed with even more fines, so I am sure they are going to get right on it. Most of these violations can be fixed in a day (easy stuff like fire extinguishers needing to be replaced, moved).

    All violations pertained to Space Mountain. However, I assume they have closed the other attractions in order to inspect them and make sure they meet/exceed DOSH requirements so this doesn't happen to them again. To be honest, reading through these, seems like they were quite negligent on Space Mountain, and apparently, a worker suffered serious injuries in November 2012 as a result of this.
    Natalie
    INTERCOT Staff: Disneyland Resort-California, The Water Cooler

  6. #5
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    Amazing that a company with such resources didn't bother to make sure they were compliant. Surely the legal department knew the contents of the regulations since they likely spent a sum of cash on lobbying when the regulations were being drafted.

  7. #6
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    I noticed they waited until after the Easter crowds to close these rides. Just saying, Disney is a big employer and brings a lot of money to the area but they should still have to maintain safety standards. It has been more then 3 months since the Oct and Nov accidents. Don't employees deserve safe work environments?
    Three years in Connecticut and loving it
    Next trip in Jan 2017 I hope!

  8. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mrs Bus Driver View Post
    Don't employees deserve safe work environments?
    Thank *you*
    Former WDW Magic Kingdom Cast Member (2001-2010): Main Street Parades/WDWRR Engineer/Conductor; Frontierland Attractions; Tomorrowland Attractions

    Last: Sep '14 (Coronado Springs)
    Next:Oct 2015: MNSSHP

    Have you ever dreamed the dreams of the children...?

  9. #8
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    Looks like Disney needs to re-read the working from elevated platforms standard. I work in the manufacturing industry and just had OSHA on site for over a week. They have updated part of the elevated platform standard and even we were caught off guard by some of the new parts of the standard. Enclosed ladders, complete railings, and other means of fall protection have been standard for years though and that's probably why some of these items were flagged as Willful. This means they were aware of the hazards, had some procedure in place to mitigate them, and did not follow it.

    Hopefully they can get their act together. WDW better watch out, especially if the same conditions exist in Florida. These would be considered repeat violations (same company) and they would be hit with much larger fines.

  10. #9
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    In fairness to Disney, Matterhorn and Space Mountain are both old attractions. I'm sure they were built well before many of these OSHA standards were in place.
    Ian ºOº
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  11. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ian View Post
    In fairness to Disney, Matterhorn and Space Mountain are both old attractions. I'm sure they were built well before many of these OSHA standards were in place.
    That is true, Ian. However, they have also recently retrofitted some attractions that were not up to code. Alice in Wonderland underwent a semi-major refurbishment due to that elevated track. It now has railings on it, and honestly, that wasn't even that high off the ground. So, to see that they were allowing workers to clean the outside of Space Mountain using makeshift anchor points for the cleaning platforms...is honestly shocking to me. I can't believe that this was not addressed a long time ago.

    And really, there is no excuse for having fire extinguishers that were last inspected 7 years ago...that is just laziness on their part.

    They deserve every penny of that fine.

    I honestly think the Matterhorn shut down was coincidental...that ride was just completely refurbished.
    Natalie
    INTERCOT Staff: Disneyland Resort-California, The Water Cooler

  12. #11
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    Ian is absolutely right about the older rides bieng built before regulations changed. I seem to recall reading about Walt testing the matterhorn personally before it was even finished, having the train landing on a pile of hay bales. It's hard to regulate things that havent been done before, and at the time space mountain and matterhorn were originally built there were very few rules as nothing mlike that had been done before. Pioneers set the rules!

    As for the fire extinguishers. Very disappointing..

  13. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Main Street Jim View Post
    Thank *you*
    Your welcome.
    Three years in Connecticut and loving it
    Next trip in Jan 2017 I hope!

  14. #13
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    I have never worked at a company that didn't do a full safety compliance review after a workplace accident. The most astonishing part is that Disney seems to have not conducted such a review.

    I have compassion for small enterprises that cannot afford the compliance staff and cannot really afford any required retrofits. I don't feel bad for a company that posts the profits Disney has and cannot get fire extinguishers inspected on a regular basis. They're probably still getting off easier than they truly deserve.

  15. #14
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    I might also be willing to cut them some slack if they needed to address items with an extended outage, but they clearly just came through refurbs on two of the rides that are currently shutdown.

    Seems like someone either dropped the ball regarding these items or they were not considered a management priority. I hope it was the former since I would hate to believe that Disney would not address safety items as the highest priority.

  16. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Roger's #1 Fan View Post
    Seems like someone either dropped the ball regarding these items or they were not considered a management priority. I hope it was the former since I would hate to believe that Disney would not address safety items as the highest priority.
    There have been growing suspicions out there that safety and maintenance were being given low priority in favor of profits for quite a while. On the maintenance front, guests have seen ample evidence in the parks. Maybe this is an example of what has been happening on the safety side.

  17. #16
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    There was somebody at Disneyland, whose primary job was overseeing safety. In my mind, one of two things happened here.
    1. That individual failed at their job.
    2. The company refused to implement safety improvements because of cost.

    Either reason is inexcusable. A lot of safety precautions seem over the top, at times, but their primary purpose is to make sure employees leave in the same condition they arrived in.

    As far as if it was reason 1 or 2, well, there's a job posting for Disneyland that hit the wire today:

    Responsibilities
    The Principal Safety Services Professional for Facilities and Operation Services serves as a key safety resource by providing technical expertise in or for Safety field services. S/he is responsible for developing, implementing and sustaining all aspects of programs and assignments and driving continuous performance improvement using audit results, incident analysis, review of source material (rules, codes, laws and standards) and industry practices.
    JR
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  18. #17
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    There is no excuse for having fire extinguishers that were last inspected 7 years ago...that is just laziness on their part.
    As far as the fire extinguishers go, at least at WDW's attractions, part of the Pre-Opening procedures is for someone to go around and *check* all the fire extinguishers. I *know* I made sure that my attractions had up-to-date FE inspection tags on them.

    *However* - a LOT of hourly CM's - ride operators - do the bare minimum when it comes to doing opening procedures. The paperwork/checklist may say only "Check fire extinguishers", and MOST CM's will just check it off the list if there's just a fire extinguisher in place. They don't bother to actually *check* them; meaning, check the inspection tag, making sure it's not out-of-date.
    Former WDW Magic Kingdom Cast Member (2001-2010): Main Street Parades/WDWRR Engineer/Conductor; Frontierland Attractions; Tomorrowland Attractions

    Last: Sep '14 (Coronado Springs)
    Next:Oct 2015: MNSSHP

    Have you ever dreamed the dreams of the children...?

  19. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Main Street Jim View Post
    They don't bother to actually *check* them; meaning, check the inspection tag, making sure it's not out-of-date.
    This is a problem with the culture. If safety is made a top concern through awareness programs and routine oversight, everyone will be more diligent about it. It takes a commitment from high above to do more than the minimum, though.

    I work in computer security and you can't succeed without getting everybody on board, and that means having a director/executive to drive awareness and audit programs throughout the entire enterprise. I am sure the same is true for safety.

  20. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Main Street Jim View Post
    As far as the fire extinguishers go, at least at WDW's attractions, part of the Pre-Opening procedures is for someone to go around and *check* all the fire extinguishers. I *know* I made sure that my attractions had up-to-date FE inspection tags on them.

    *However* - a LOT of hourly CM's - ride operators - do the bare minimum when it comes to doing opening procedures. The paperwork/checklist may say only "Check fire extinguishers", and MOST CM's will just check it off the list if there's just a fire extinguisher in place. They don't bother to actually *check* them; meaning, check the inspection tag, making sure it's not out-of-date.
    I hear what you're saying, but 7 years??? More than a "couple" CMs dropped the ball here.

    In one instance, the fire extinguisher that was supposed to be in a "readily available" location was found in a closed, unlabeled box on the ROOF! Glad it was never needed...
    Natalie
    INTERCOT Staff: Disneyland Resort-California, The Water Cooler

  21. #20
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tekneek View Post
    I am sure the same is true for safety.
    Honestly, this is one of my fears with airline safety.

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