Shaking Up the Tourists With a Jolt of ‘Reality’ : Universal’s $13-million ride will feature an ‘earthquake’ that some say is too convincing

Imagine you’re pulling into one of Metro Rail’s new Downtown destinations deep under the busy city streets. . . .

The tunnel opens into the brightly lit chamber of the subway station just ahead. You anticipate leaving the train and rejoining the life above ground, where the sun shines and high-rises glitter in the summer haze.

But as you draw level with the station platform, the train shudders slightly. You feel the car’s metal skin shiver as if with a warning chill. The woman in the next seat looks suddenly unhappy. Other passengers voice a rising murmur of concern.

“Nothing to be worried about, folks,” says the smooth voice of the train driver over the loudspeaker. “Just one of the hundred or so little shakes we have in the city each year.”

A deep and distant rumble strikes your ear. Before you can react, a hot wind blasts through the subway.

The train begins a violent rocking--up and down, side to side, tilting and yawing. The track bed sinks, dropping the trapped passengers’ faces level with the edge of the platform. Everywhere there is the screech of buckling metal, the crunch of collapsing concrete. Sparks fly from severed electric coils, arcing small lightning flashes across the station. The smell of escaping gas is everywhere.

The roaring is terrible. The Earth itself seems to be shrieking in agony. Suddenly a great chunk of the concrete station roof crashes down on the platform, along with a sparking power line. A huge tanker truck carrying propane gas slides down the tilt and comes close to crushing your subway car.

Another train rushes into the station from the opposite direction and slams into the propane truck at high speed. The truck jackknifes and explodes, sending a whoosh of flames and heat into the air.

Another deep roaring sound bursts through the cacophony. A flood of water rushes down the station’s steps and rolls at you with the force of a small tidal wave.

At the last instant the train jerks forward. The passengers barely escape.

You and the other scared riders rush from the scene of chaos into the safety of the Universal Studios back lot.

Earthquake--The Big One is the name the Universal Studios Tour has given to its newest fright experience. Earthquake will deliver, up to 200 times a day, a 145-second simulation of an 8.3 Richter-scale shake.

The ride will open March 18. The opening had been set for Nov. 21, 1988, but was delayed for technical and business reasons, said Joan Bullard, public relations vice president of MCA, parent company of Universal Studios. Hitches occurred in the ride’s erupting floor and the Tessler coils that create showers of sparks. After the delay caused by these problems, it was decided to wait until the Easter school break to open Earthquake.

Obviously, someone thinks there is money to be made in imaginary disaster: Universal’s planning and development team has poured extraordinary ingenuity--plus $13 million--into fabricating the simulation.

However, not everyone is amused by the big-budget amusement. Some people who have suffered in a real earthquake are put off by the idea of simulating one for fun, and a UCLA professor of psychiatry, Dr. Lewis Jolyon West, warns that such a ride might be psychologically damaging to children.

West says children under 10 can be traumatized by such an experience, real or simulated, and that he is still treating youngsters for nightmares and phobias that started after the October, 1987, tremor that caused major damage in Whittier and other areas.

“Thrill-seeking behavior in the service of amusement is one thing when a fantasy like King Kong is the tame terror object,” West said in referring to a Universal show that features a huge mechanical ape. “But earthquake simulation comes very close to people’s real fears. I wonder if it’s wise to use an event as likely and threatening as the Big One to make a kid’s hair stand on end.”

However, West says, for some children such a ride might actually lessen fear of an earthquake. “Inoculating yourself with a controlled amount of fright is called ‘counterphobic behavior.’ It can condition you in advance for the traumas of the real experience. But you never know how each individual would react, and I don’t advise any parent to risk a child in the Earthquake ride.”

The equipment needed to put people into the proper state of fear is under the command of technical affairs director Larry Lester. The Earthquake concrete shell houses an array of air compressors, hydraulic lifts, electric coils and high-pressure water-pumping stations to create a vivid array of shaking, sinking, sagging, sparking and flooding scenarios.

“We outlined seven basic terrors we wanted to scare up in the tourists,” Lester said. “These are: fears of an unstable earth, of electrocution, being buried alive, fire, darkness, abandonment and drowning. We want people to run the gamut from uncertainty about what’s happening to them to disbelief, to absolute fright.

“Of course, they know it’s just a show and that they’ll come out OK. But all the same, we want to make their hair stand on end.”

The idea for Earthquake came from Jay Stein, president of MCA Recreation Services, which owns and operates the Universal tour.

“Jay had the idea in the late 1970s,” explained Barry Upson, MCA’s executive vice president for planning and development. “But the technological expertise to make it happen in all its dramatic detail has only recently been perfected.”

Planning for Earthquake began with a story board--a kind of comic strip that sketches out the sequence in a series of frames. After months of discussion, the story line was agreed on and several scale models of a collapsing subway station were built in a Universal back-lot studio. After testing and modification, the models were turned into reality by Lester’s team, aided by a roster of specialized consultants ranging from structural engineers and architects to hydraulic and electrical effects specialists.

Lester, a one-time pipe welder, helicopter pilot and set designer, has helped devise several of Universal Studios’ popular shows, including “King Kong,” “Miami Vice” and “Star Wars.” He has become a specialist in designing the kind of reality-simulating experiences that have become a staple of theme and entertainment parks around the country.

“The entire sequence is computerized to function without human intervention,” Lester explained. “As soon as the train is in the station, the effects are triggered automatically. Fifteen seconds after one train leaves the station at the end of a sequence, the set is ready for the next.

“The water’s pumped out instantly, the cracked beams are righted, the propane truck and the collapsed ceiling slab are lifted back into place. The only evidence left of the previous scene is the wet floor of the station platform, and that just seems a natural part of a routine cleansing.”

Lester explained that a subway station was chosen for Earthquake because it offered an enclosed and controlled environment. “A quake that took place on a freeway or a city street would be more difficult to make real,” he said.

Unlike most of the extravaganzas offered to Universal’s 4-million-plus annual visitors, Earthquake is a “reality show.” It is not science-fiction fantasia or cowboy stunts or cop capers, not the “Parting of the Red Sea” or “Conan’s Sword” and “Sorcery Spectacular.”

Earthquake’s physical safety precautions are rigorous. Its effects have been tested for potential impacts on every possible condition large and small, from the stresses in the concrete construction to the current in a tourist’s heart-pacemaker coils.

If a terrified tour rider tries to jump out of the car, infrared light curtains and sensitive pressure sensors built into the platform edge will immediately override the computers and freeze the action. In addition, the tour guide carries a panic button that can also stop the show in mid-scene.

And what if a real earthquake should occur during a ride? Chances are that no one would be hurt. The Earthquake attraction is designed to survive a real 8.3 temblor without major damage.

“The show would probably be one of the safest places to be in a real event,” Lester said, smiling. “After all, everything is on platforms designed to rock with the shock. And, since our show lasts 145 seconds and an actual quake seldom goes more than half that time, tour visitors would be unaware that anything had happened outside the set.”