The Walt Disney World Resort, in conjunction with the Federal Alliance for Safe Homes (FLASH), has announced that StormStruck: The Tale of Two Homes will be coming to Innoventions in Epcot in August of 2008.
This 3-D, immersive, surround-sound attraction will recreate the experience thousands of Floridians lived through when Hurricane Charley made landfall on Friday the 13th in August 2004. This category 4 hurricane swept through the central Florida region with 105 mile per hour winds, leaving a trail of loss and destruction in its path.
The new ‘attraction’ is designed to show how a home’s design and use of certain building materials can mean the difference between total destruction and minimal damage during such a hurricane.
Can anyone else say big fun!!!!
As someone who has lived through Hurricane Charley, bunkered down in our home clutching the dogs in the dark, I think this is perhaps the tackiest idea I have ever heard. I completely understand the need to educate people on storm preparations but to make a 3-D attraction out of it in a theme park seems to be going too far to me.
Now before you argue that Universal Studios has a Twister attraction you have to admit that’s a little different. Twister is based on a movie. Plus the attraction at Universal is kind of lame. Basing something on an actual storm that affected the very area it will be located all seems a bit tacky to me.
The summer of 2004 was a scary time for many of us living in Central Florida, as well as the other Gulf Coast States. Back-to-back storms pummeled the area and caused widespread damage and destruction. Images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina still appear on TV and in newspapers to this day. These storms still impact travel to the region as many people wonder if it’s safe to travel to Florida during hurricane season.
Did Disney really think this through?
I will go see this attraction when it opens just out of curiosity to see how the Disney Imagineers handle this very delicate subject; but I still question the wisdom of placing this type of attraction in Walt Disney World at this time.
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