Credit: WDWNT
A Disney Monorail was struck by lightning on the evening of Sunday, July 13, 2014, and it completely shut down. Over 100 Walt Disney World guests ended up needing to be evacuated from the Disney Monorail via safety crews.
WESH reported that the incident happened around 6:00 p.m. on Sunday evening.
Reedy Creek officials arrived on the scene with safety trucks so they could evacuate about 120 guests from the Disney Monorail.
Fire officials have confirmed that a “weather-related issue” caused the Disney Monorail to lose power entirely. Disney Cast Members were unable to get the monorail restarted and therefore needed to evacuate the guests.
It was around 6:00 p.m. that guests started sending out tweets regarding the situation.
“Literally stuck on a monorail at Disney, lighting struck and we immediately stopped. I’m convinced that I’m going to die,” said Twitter user @nnaaatttalliiie at 6:07 p.m.
“We’re going to have to evacuate the monorail,” @lilymock said.
Not sure why she was “convinced” that person thought they were going to die, but yeah…
Reports had the Disney Monorail stalled nearby Wilderness Lodge and that it was the Epcot Monorail line. It was Disney Monorail Gold that was struck.
Word is that the Disney Monorail stopped in the transfer track area where the monorail tractor couldn’t be used to pull it to a safe unloading zone.
This is when Reedy Creek arrived with the cherry picker ladder truck and got guests down after they were evacuated via the Disney Monorail roof hatch.
No injuries have been reported.
A spokesperson for Walt Disney World said that there was very bad weather in the area at the time the incident with the Disney Monorail happened. There was not confirmation at the time that a lightning strike cause the power outage.
Other reports are stating that the monorail was indeed struck by lightning.
Severely bad weather has plagued the Disney Parks area for the past month, and it isn’t the usual afternoon storms for half an hour.
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