Massive Power Outages Strike Great America

[Aero737]

Or Ebay Click Me

[coasterinsane]

heading in.... hopefully the ride run....

[LAFFfan4lyfe]

it wasn't really that bad. I was there, and we were walking through Country fair and saw Demon and Vu down, went further into County fair, saw Eagle and IW down, and pretty much everything else....

aftter they fixed the power, which was around 4:45, V2 didn't reopen, and Deja Vu did. I didn't take the free ticket, didn't really want to, I have a pass, so yeah.

[Rusty888]

I hope everythings open today, I'm going from 1 - 8:30

[m-force 4 ever]

yeah the park should be fine today as long as nobody else drives into a power line.

[colincoon]

Nooo! You could have given the free ticket to me!!! But yeah that power outage happens alot to BGT, mostly in the summer time. It's happened three times while I was there, but they are used to it and get everything running in about 20 minutes. Oh well that's what I get for living near BGSuck!

Colin C

[Danhockey04]

I dont know if this was stated or not, I just dont feel like reading it all, but what caused the powere outage?

There was a car accident somewhere in Gurnee that hit some power source and caused the whole area to lose power. It lasted for about 30 minutes, then re-opened all the rides except Vu and V2, then happened again after 20 minutes for about another 2 hours. Then all the rides re-opened except Vu and V2. Vu did open later at 6:30, but V2 remained closed the whole night.

[ihauntu2]

Must have taken out a distribution pole or a pad mounted switchgear to cause those kinds of problems.

My bet would be on the latter, since most of the Utilities I've seen on the main roads in Gurnee are underground and switchgears are often located near intersections.

Any clue on how large an area was out of service?

Sounds like ComED was having some issues redistributing the load across the remaining circuits. That would account for the rollercoasters operating sporadically and V2 being out for the rest of the day (the amount of load that little bugger puts on in such a short time is ridiculous).

I am really suprised that SFGAM doesn't have its own dedicated feeder circuit, especially given the amount of juice they suck down in a year.

[Danhockey04]

I was so surprised to see that Deja Vu reopened, we were sitting in Farmer's Market, I hear the compressed air release and just point at the ride and say "Look!" No one knows what I mean until the train goes through the Cobra Roll, we got over there quickly and was like the 7th ones in line.

Also, it was funny to see that V2 was stuck in the launch track during the power outage, so the ride-ops had to push the train back into the station, it was funny.

It was cool to walk around the park and see that every ride in the park had the ride closed sign out and coasters stuck on lift hills, I thought it was cool, but I have a season pass and I didnt get mad, but for those who bought tickets, it must have not been fun. The park did a good job though handling this.

[w00dland]

Orbit was still stuck half way up the cycle today...

[twixmix0303]

Not exactly halfway up...it was pretty close to the ground, maybe 12 feet or so above.

Here's an article in the tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 3566.story

[Raging_Bull]

I think it would have been awesome to be in the front row of Viper hanging over the first drop

[Aero737]

Six Flags very might well have their own feeder line. I don't live in Gurnee, but are there any reports of blown/black outs across the immediate area sorrounding great america? I think most of the commercial places around great america would be associated on the same line more than the residential.

[sixflagsguy5]

V2 was running yesterday and Orbit was still stuck about 15 feet from the ground.

[SFGAm Rules]

Six Flags very might well have their own feeder line. I don't live in Gurnee, but are there any reports of blown/black outs across the immediate area sorrounding great america? I think most of the commercial places around great america would be associated on the same line more than the residential.

I'm not right next to Great America, but I'm pretty close. My power went out Tuesday afternoon for about a minute. It came back, but it went out again yesterday at noon and just came on twenty minutes ago.

The part of the article that says, "The cause of the power line disruption near a substation on North Hunt Club Road is under investigation, Rader said. About 340 other Gurnee-area customers, mostly residential, also briefly lost power." probably explains why my power was out.

[danieln84]

You would think Six Flags would be smart enough to just pay Com Ed to have lines DEDICATED TO THEM...like directly from the park. Or at least have a little SUBSTATION built on the proporty to CONTROL the power itself....

just my thought, correct me if im wrong or if its a good idea or what not

[twixmix0303]

The light at Hunt Club and Washington was out yesterday, and the light at Cemetary and Washington was flashing red in all directions. (They were both working fine today, although there was a Lake County pick-up truck at the Cemetary light.)

[danieln84]

I wonder if Deja Vu Breaking down had anything to do with the outage since Com Ed said they had only done a Temporary fix. because every couple cycles it would break and they would have to restart it.

i think it was mainly the FLOOR though...

[twixmix0303]

Hmmm...that's almost as silly as the man that caused the NY blackout with his blender

Trust me...Deja Vu did not cause the loss of power

[Aero737]

If DeJa Vu broke down and somehow caused a short in the circut then the parks own circut breaker system would trip and cut power. It sounds like this was an issue with Com Ed. Too much power being drawn, or a possible surge all could have tripped a breaker. Wear on equipment, dust, and the excessive heat strain on equipment all also could have contributed to the blackout.

[RagingBullLover1543]

I was there the day the power went out. I was furious because the employees couldn't tell me what was going on I'm glad that they gave us a complimentary admission ticket