Power Failure Puts Brakes to Magic Mountain Rides

A heat-related power failure in Santa Clarita forced Magic Mountain amusement park to shut down its famed roller coasters Wednesday, leaving unhappy merrymakers standing in line in temperatures that hovered around 100 degrees.

The power failure occurred about 2:30 p.m. when a generator serving 592 businesses in the Valencia Industrial Center across the Golden State Freeway from Magic Mountain malfunctioned, said Rosalie Gnam, area manager for Southern California Edison. It was one of three in the Santa Clarita area that day, she said. The others were in Hasley Canyon, where 231 households were affected, and Val Verde, where 539 households were affected. By 5 p.m., power was restored to all the affected areas, she said.

Gnam blamed “the intense heat and heavy use of air conditioners. . . . The equipment might not have failed under normal conditions.”

Gnam said Magic Mountain did not actually lose electricity but apparently the power failure caused a “voltage dip” that triggered the park’s computers to shut down the rides automatically.

“The problem we had on the system may have affected some of their computer equipment,” Gnam said.

Magic Mountain spokeswoman Eileen Harrell said the rides were shut down for less than 15 minutes while employees performed safety checks after the power disruption.

“The power comes back instantaneously” because the park has backup generators, Harrell said. “When the power is restored, we do our usual security checks, which takes a few minutes.”

But The Times received eight phones calls between 4 and 4:30 p.m. from angry amusement park patrons who said the rides had been shut down for two hours and had not resumed operating. They accused amusement park officials of misleading them about the extent of the problem and refusing to grant them refunds.

“No announcement was made that the power was off. It was very misleading,” said Andrew Nash, 45, a doctor from Bristol, England, who said he paid $100 to visit Magic Mountain with his wife and two sons.

“We waited in the hot sun for several hours, and they wouldn’t tell us what was going on.”

Nash and several others said that when they complained, amusement park officials would only offer them free passes to return at a later date, which they refused.

“As a visitor from another country, I’m outraged that they wouldn’t give me a refund. We’re leaving this country shortly and they were stonewalling,” Nash said. “The complaint office treated us shabbily.”

Harrell said she was unaware of Nash’s complaint. She said the amusement park has no set policy on refunds and evaluates each complaint on a case-by-case basis.

Several local residents who brought out-of-town guests to Magic Mountain also complained about the way they were treated.

“We’ve been here since 11 and we’ve ridden on only one ride,” said Nancy Hart, 23, of Lancaster, who visited the park with a friend who leaves for college in Northern California this weekend.

“When we asked for a refund, they told me that the rides were all back on again, so we went outside and they weren’t running,” Hart said. “When I went back and told them the rides weren’t back on, they said, ‘Yes, they are.’ I can’t believe they lied to me.”