New Epcot exhibit will put guests in eye of the hurricane

[HurricaneJoe22]

New Epcot exhibit will put guests in eye of the hurricane
It's said to be educational, entertaining

By Maya Bell | Orlando Sentinel
May 18, 2008

Hurricanes are about the last thing tourism officials want Florida visitors to experience. But starting this summer, Disney will treat them to the sights, sounds and fury of 2004's Hurricane Charley.

The only protective gear required: 3-D glasses.

Scheduled to debut at Epcot's Innoventions pavilion in late August, StormStruck: The Tale of Two Homes is designed to be fun — yes, fun — and educational.

It seeks to motivate homeowners to be sure their homes hold up as Chris Webb's did during Charley, as opposed to what happened to the home of his neighbor, Jim Minardi.

Except for a pool enclosure, the almost-new Webb home on Gulfview Road in Punta Gorda was unscathed when Charley howled ashore Aug. 13, 2004.

But across the street, the Category 4 winds ripped the roof off Minardi's 43-year-old house and gutted the interior. "A total loss," the retired college administrator said Friday. "We scraped it off the lot and started over."

The difference was in how each house was built, especially how well the component parts — the roof, the walls, the floors — were tied to one another.

StormStruck, a film in digital surround-sound theater, is based on what happened to these two houses and is designed to show homeowners that they can make their own homes safer not by teaching the nitty-gritty of safe construction, but with a little Disney drama.

"What if we could put you in the middle of a storm and make it your job to figure out how to make a safer house?" said Joe Tankersley, an "Imagineer" with the Walt Disney Co.'s creative and design group, during a presentation Friday at the Governor's Hurricane Conference in Fort Lauderdale.

"All the information about mitigation techniques ... weren't really as important as getting people to understand, 'Hey, you can do something. It's in your hands. You can make your home safer.'"

According to a Disney description, visitors will don 3-D glasses and watch as their "safe house" is lashed by a hurricane and begins to break up around them. As the eye of the storm hovers overhead, they'll race against the clock to decide how to rebuild the home more safely.

Afterward, they can visit a "Weather Mitigation Research Lab" where they can learn building techniques that will make their homes more weather-resistant.

Tankersley conceded it seems "like a stretch" to use a theme park to teach storm mitigation.

He wasn't exactly wowed by the idea when approached more than five years ago by Leslie Chapman-Henderson, president and CEO of the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes. The nonprofit organization, which has more than 100 partners, is sponsoring the Epcot exhibit for three years with money from contributions.

"The first time I met Leslie, she started talking about weather mitigation, and I went, 'Yikes!'" Tankersley said. "That's not exciting."

But after thousands of hours of conversation, Tankersley said he and his design team of about a dozen artists were able to condense an encyclopedia of disaster-mitigation knowledge and techniques into a simple message that was crystallized, just a few months ago, by a 4-year-old Katrina survivor.

As part of a recovery exercise, the child created a crepe-paper collage and the image of a hand and described the artwork this way: "This is my house in the hurricane and I am fixing it."

Those words provided Tankersley his eureka moment:

"Four-year-olds think they have the power to change things, and when I read that, I knew what our message would be," he said.

Tankersley said the exhibit will motivate people to learn how to do make their homes safer.

[Dean4Storms]

Pretty sad on the state of education in America when a theme park has to tell you how to protect yourself.

What is next? How to evacuate?

[JonathanBelles]

oOo thats gonna be pretty nice. Thats if I ever went to Epcot.....

[KBBOCA]

Sounds pretty cool. Perhaps out of state tourists won't care so much, but lots of Floridians visit Epcot too, and it sounds perfect for school field trips. Hopefully it will help folks identify weak points in their homes and save lives. If I ever get up to Disney any time soon, I'd love to go.

[CrazyC83]

Next time I go there, I'll surely be seeing that!

An entire section dedicated to weather and understanding such would be great! A wind tunnel ride simulating hurricane winds would be interesting, resembling where the reporters go - except safely seated in an ride with progressively increasing winds - entering in 25 mph, then up to 40 mph, then 60, 75, 90, 105 and finally 120 mph before slowly coming down in that order - with rain water being sprayed in the second half!

[CajunMama]

Awww man! I've been to disney the past 7 straight years (highschool & college danceteam nationals). Now that she's decided to be a just a student her last year of college i won't be going. What a neat exhibit it sounds like it will be.

[Opal storm]

Wow that sounds awesome! Epcot is already my favorite theme park at Disney so I can't wait for this.

[Ixolib]

The difference was in how each house was built, especially how well the component parts — the roof, the walls, the floors — were tied to one another.

That's all fine and dandy until the home is inundated by an extreme - or even less than extreme - storm surge with breaking waves on top of that.

I wonder how they're gonna simulate that most deadly and damaging part of a hurricane....

[gtalum]

I'm surprised that Disney is claiming the exhibit will help educate Floridians. The real goal, to be sure, is to attract and thrill out-of-state tourists and their money.

[JonathanBelles]

I have to agree with that. I really wish Universal was doing this. They mastered a tornado in show, I dont see why they couldnt do a hurricane. Universal has mastered water effects, and I think they could do surge.

[gtalum]

I wonder how they're gonna simulate that most deadly and damaging part of a hurricane....

Since they're simulating Charley, I don't think they have to worry much about surge... He was almost purely a wind event.

[Ixolib]

I wonder how they're gonna simulate that most deadly and damaging part of a hurricane....

Since they're simulating Charley, I don't think they have to worry much about surge... He was almost purely a wind event.

Good point about Charley..... But if the intent is to educate folks on hurricanes in general, the omission of a realistic storm surge in the attraction may contribute even more unrealistic expectations to an already ignorant public whose general focus tends to be centered on a hurricane's wind speed rather than on its storm surge. As has been proven time and again, storm surge (when it's present) is a much more significant contributor to death, damage, and destruction than the wind speed.

All that aside, the true intent, I'm sure, is to thrill rather than to educate. I mean, after all, Disney is world renown for its ability to showcase a wonderful fantasy.

I don't know, I'm thinking in addition to 3-D goggles, they could provide life preservers, snorkels, a huge mass of floating debris, and a 20-foot surge of nasty, muddy, and turbulent sea water to give the customer a real ride for their money. Now THAT would be educational!

[gtalum]

Heh, I'd love to see the first reviews of THAT.

[Cyclone1]

Sounds cool, but honestly... been there, done that.

Would be kinda cool, to re-experience Chaz without any kind of danger.