Dock Radio Black
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Great Balls Of Fire
Well, I’m back with another one of my memorable river craft stories. So get ready because this one I am sure you’ll never forget especially the next time you take a raft across the river. See it all started on around the beginning of March in 2003. As you might of heard, a young girl had accidentally torn her finger off while playing with the rifles in Fort Wilderness located on Tom Sawyers Island. While she was playing with one of the rifles, she fell with her finger still in the trigger thus tearing her finger. Things were really odd that day because management was all over the island and locked down the fort as soon as the incident occurred. All the river crewmembers had no idea what was going on but at least for that day, fort wilderness was closed.
So the very next day, I was scheduled to start at 10:00 am since I was the opening crewmember for the Tom Sawyer rafts as well as the island. Now if you didn’t know, the rafts are really free floating pontoons. In reality, real boats. Now , the raft crew is responsible for the island since we have the ability to gain access to the island the fastest with the largest guest boarding capability and size fleet. As well as able to maneuver throughout the river with this very stable low to the water vessel. Pretty much the coast guards of the Rivers of America . We are required to go over, check that all the secret Fantasmic service shafts are locked, and equipment is all put away. Then walk the entire island for any safety issues, turn on the audio for the fort as well as problems that might affect the show or expose any of the Fantasmic workings. I did just that at this time and was to open the island for guest enjoyment at exactly 11:00am. At this time I was back on the shore side of the river and parked at the raft dock. Now if you didn’t know, there were three different rafts. The “Injun Joe”, “Tom” and “Becky”. All named after the well known book “Tom Sawyer” written by Mark Twain. Thus the relationship name wise to the beautiful paddle boat there on the river as well.
By this time, there were about 40-50 folks lining up to be the first across to the island. That’s when the other cast member who was assigned to start with me at 11:00am, showed up. I told him to allow the guest through the turn style and get ready. He started talking to the guest randomly as I finalized the dock check off sheets as well as the raft for a full days operation. So I gave the o.k. to my partner and was about to start up the “Tom” raft, and tighten up the bow line for boarding. That forces the vessel against the dock in order to close the gap between the vessel and dock as well as kept it from being pulled out toward the center of the river when the “Twain” passed by. Then as soon as I was about to radio into the park operations radio channel that the rafts were open, a group of well dressed cast members walked onto the dock excusing them selves as they made their way through the guest awaiting. I looked up at my partner asking, “Who are these guys”. They were not area managers or anyone I have ever seen before in general. The guest seemed a little up tight about being delayed from crossing do to this sudden group of big wigs. By this time it was 11:08am and we still had not left port.
This group of four introduced them selves to me as the safety department and who needed to go across the river to take pictures and investigate the rifle where the girl had torn her finger off the day before. I told one of the gentlemen that it was the wrong time to do so since these folks had been waiting to go across. He told me that they had full authority and authorization to hold the attraction as long as they needed to do what ever had to be done relating to the finger injury. I tried to explain once more that this was bad “show”. They stated that I was to take them right then without any further arguments. So I called in to the area attraction manager via two-way radio to report this hold up. My manager told me had no idea of this visit or what was going on. I then explained to the guest that it would be only a few minutes longer. Then I went to the controls of the “Tom” and told the safety team members to come aboard so that we could get on the way. Now here is a decent crowd on the dock waiting for a ride to the island, we are now 15 minutes behind schedule and I have the parks safety director including investigative staff on my raft.
Things were tense at this moment. I looked down at the controls and turned on the ignition. Then I pushed the starter button. The engine started but was misfiring a second later. I tried it once more, but it backfired and then stalled. The safety director then blurts out loud, “why don’t you choke it” , “give it some choke and it will start, the motor sounds like its flooded”. I was not happy with these guys as it was for disrupting the guest going across, so I looked at him straight in the face and told him “this vessel is powered by propane……you can’t choke it”. He demanded that I try to start it again, and so I did. Once again, it backfired and shut down. At that point I told them to get on the “Becky” so that we could get this over with. So as they made their way to the other raft docked behind the “Tom”, I closed up the controls then snatched up the two-way radio. Now I was about to step off the stalling raft when a female guest yelled to me, “is that little chimney on the raft suppose to smoke”. I turned around and saw a small puff of black smoke coming from the doghouse shaped motor cover in the center of the raft. I hurried over to it and popped it open with a huge cloud of black smoke enveloping the raft. That’s when things really went wrong. I looked down inside the engine housing and before I had a chance to see exactly what was going on, a fireball shot up out of the compartment. The flames were high and being fueled by something flammable. I yelled at the other raft cast member to get the crowd back!! I had totally forgotten about the safety department staff at this point as well as the standard cast member composer that they expect us to maintain at all times.
Man the fames were pretty intense. I grabbed the extinguisher located on the raft and began blowing it into the engine compartment. Looking up, I noticed that the guests were just standing there next to the raft looking at me and taking pictures. So due to my knowledge of the dangers of the river which could make this fire turn into a huge bomb, I yelled at them “Get back right now……… stop taking pictures and get back for your own safety”. Now the look on the safety investigators faces was worth a million bucks. They looked scared to death. Like they had seen a ghost. At that moment the fire went dead, but then fired up even stronger than before. I dumped all the fire retardant into the housing trying my best to stop the flames from reaching the propane supply in the rafts belly. The flames reignited every time I put them out.
I yelled out to my partner, “get the other extinguisher off the other raft and the dock, and give them to me”. He ran onto the “Becky” tore the extinguisher off, and ran back toward me. I then made a decision to push the raft toward the center of the river. The reason for this was that I honestly thought that if it blew up, that it would be better to injure us rather than a bunch of innocent by-standers. I had two kids my self at this point in my life and I reacted as a father. Protecting the kids next to the dock was my main priority. So the raft started to drift out toward the center of the river and the flames were still going strong. I made the call over the radio to “operations” that the raft was on fire as well as tried to radio the Twain since they were just leaving the dock for departure. I knew this because of the bell and whistle in the background. I then just climbed as close to the engine housing as possible to get to the source of the fire under the wood deck and behind the engine. I let that fire have it!!!
I unloaded a large entire extinguisher without stopping, and had my partner spray his on the surrounding wood engine compartment. We both stood back and peered in to see if the fire was out. As I did so, I looked over my shoulder to see the Twain in front of river stage area making its way towards us. I called the Twain on the radio twice with no response. Then I remember yelling, “Stop!!!! We are on fire!!!”, “the rafts on fire!!!”. Saying these exact words was forbidden. We are to use a code of “904” rather than “Fire” but no one listened to me or knew what I was implying because most cast members were not familiar or drilled on that code. Then the Twain’s steam engineer heard me and immediately, threw the paddle in reverse and stopped the ship. The only reason that the wheelhouse did not hear us the first time was there were guest inside the wheelhouse. This distracted the cast members from hearing the original call. Just like what happened during the Keelboat sinking which took place in the summer of 1997, which I will describe in my next article.
Well the fire looked to be out but the electrical system was sparking. I then reached in, using my costume shirt to protect my hand, and began pulling all the electrical wires off the motor until the sparking stopped. Man we were completely covered with white powder from head to toe. The raft was also completely covered as well as the river looked as if it was a blanket of snow. The entire area was a mess and here we were stranded in the middle of the river in front of the Mark Twain with guests surrounding the front of the ship to get a close up look from above us. Now through all this, the safety department staff had taken shelter by leaving the queue and rushing up towards the Haunted Mansion viewing the aftermath from higher grounds. Talking about being in the spot light folks. I think I had a larger crowd gathered there at that moment than Fantasmic would on a normal day. By this time, the reality of what just happened hit my partner and me. I remember just sitting on one of the benches, which holds the life jackets there on the raft. I looked up at my buddy and tried to make sense of what the heck had occurred. Why did this happen? How could this happen? And why didn’t we have enough fire extinguishers or any help from the safety department. They never assisted with gathering the fire extinguishers, nor called the Disneyland Fire Department. They just ran away and watched. I had so many operational questions that I knew were over looked for years until now. The risk of a propane explosion, which could of turned to a chain reaction because the Columbia is propane filled, as well as the other rafts docked next to me. The fuel fed into the water for Fantasmic as well as the old fueling station still on the keelboat dock to this day .the potential for a disaster was huge that day.
So after about 15 or so minutes, area management assisted in getting the chard raft back to shore using the “Injun Joe” raft which was the largest of the three and more powerful, just extremely hard to pilot. We tied the two rafts together and forced it to the dock shore side. I had every single maintenance manager, supervisor, lead as well as every single corporate big wig standing by on the dock to see the rafts damage. I first went over to the guests there by the dock and told them that I was sorry for yelling at them with such force to get back. All the guests were very nice to me about it and were thanking me for a memorable visit. they all started to clap and cheer. I smiled and returned to the raft .I told the facility maintenance managers what happened and where I saw the fires ignition point. It was in the distributor that was located in the back of the four-cylinder boat motor. Now like I have told you readers before, I am very mechanically inclined with my fulltime profession as an elevator and conveyor tech, so I knew my way around mechanically. I also work on cars for enjoyment, so I told the mechanics that I found the source of the leak. See the motor leans at a tilt. The head of the motor is tilted upward and the back it downwards towards the rear of the raft. I saw that a leaking gasket had allowed oil to enter into the distributor cap and ignite the oily fueled blaze, which later turned into an electrical fire.
The maintenance mechanic there on the scene looks at me and says without any remorse or concern, “We have been trying to stop that leak for sometime now” and “ these motors run hot all day long, we knew this would probably happen”. He also remarked that he was not surprised. So later that day, the raft was towed to the Hungry Bear restaurant dock used for emergencies as well as daily for Fantasmic. The janitorial staff cleaned the powder off and then the maintenance crew replaced the distributor, and repaired the burned wiring. The “Tom” raft was pronounced useable once more. Oh and later that year, I was thanked by a guest who was there that day waiting on the dock during the fire. But Disney management or the safety department never thanked me. It was like it never happened. I know that the park replaced the entire raft fleet just a few years ago. So till next time folk’s…………..take care.
About the Author
Robert Baca is a southern California local.
He worked at Disneyland in Anaheim California from 1995 to 2003 as an Attractions Cast Member.
Other Articles by Robert can be found at http://DLDHistory.com