Hurricane Harbor (SFA) Construction Update

Andrew W · #1 03-03-2005, 03:16 PM

Well, I guess this is the beginning of a long construction log for SFA’s renovation of Paradise Island into Hurricane Harbor. I was driving past the park today and happened to glance through the gates. To my surprise and joy, some very bright colors in the second parking lot caught my eye. So I found a place to park, and walked to the front gate of the park to get a better look. Best part about this addition/renovation during the off-season is that you will be able to have a pretty good view of the vertical construction of “Tornado” and “Bahama Blast” right from the front gate as you’ll see in the below pictures. For those curious, I didn’t jump any fences or do anything illegal to get these pics. I simply took the pictures through a fence on the edge of the property. In fact, you can see all of this from the traffic light right in front of the park.

The first pic is what you would see first hand if you looked in from the front gate. There’s no zoom at all (not because I didn’t want to, but my digital camera doesn’t have zoom). You can get a pretty good idea of the area where all the action is taking place by this pic:

The second pic is a digitally enlarged version of the first pic, centered on the new slide parts. You can see the green and purple slide parts right in the foreground that will eventually make up “Bahama Blast.” The colors, interestingly enough, are almost identical to the shades of colors used on Joker’s Jinx (for reference). Behind those pieces, you can see the longer, triangle shaped blue and yellow pieces that will eventually make up “Tornado”:

There’s really not too much else you can get from those pics, but I thought you’d enjoy seeing them nonetheless. Because of the grassy hill around the water park, you really can’t see if groundwork has started or not, but if the slide parts are arriving, I’d guess that they have at least started to pour the foundations. Next up, as far as construction goes, you should start to see the large, intricate steel framework that supports “Tornado” go up and the tower for “Bahama Blast” so I’ll let you know if I see any of that next time I drive by the park.

BatwingFan SFA · #2 03-03-2005, 10:21 PM

Nice job getting the pics Andrew,looks like things are finally starting to come together.

In the first pic it looks like they havn't even started painting Mind Eraser yet....I hope they get started soon because even though I don't plan on riding the coaster it sure would look nice to have new paint on it by opening day.

Please post some more construcction pics for us when you get the chance,now that the parts are on site vertical construction should be starting some time soon.

coastergenius100 · #3 03-04-2005, 07:46 AM

Well, I don't know, I might ride that horrible coaster if it had a good paint job.

BatwingFan SFA · #4 03-04-2005, 01:29 PM

Actually it's not all that bad til you hit the inlines but that's not my reason for passing it up.

I simply refuse to get back on ME til it gets new trains that feature a safer restraint system.....one that actually stays down & locked tightly for the entire duration of the ride because I've already had two bad experiences on the ride in which the restraint actually did become unlocked mid ride.

Andrew W · #5 03-12-2005, 01:41 PM

Well, I folded. I went to SFA to take some more construction pics. So instead of blabbing on, let’s get right to the pics.

In the first two, you can see that quite a few more slide pieces have arrived on site. They’ve also started to assemble small sections. You can see the three green pieces for Bahama Blast ligned up in preparation to be sealed together. There were also some small sections of Tornado that were assembled, though I don’t think you can see any of that in the first two pics.

The third pic is the exciting one. Well, the most exciting of the three. On this one, I’m REALLY sorry for how grainy the picture is, but hopefully it will be enough for you all until opening day. What are you looking at? That’s Mind Eraser. It’s tough to see against the light background of the sky, but they have started the priming work in preparation to repaint the ride. Can you see where? Start at the bottom of the lift and follow it up, you can see two parallel teal lines. One is the walkway, the other is the track. About half way up the top line seems to disappear. Well, it’s really just white and hard to see from the pic. The pic really doesn’t do it justice, but I can assure you that at least a portion of the lift on Mind Eraser has infact been primed.

Once again, if you want better pics, you either need to find someone with a good zoom lense, you need to wait for opening day, you need to go see it for yourself, or you need to get someone closer to the action (btw, if anyone who “knows someone that knows someone” can get me hooked up with a construction tour, I’d be glad to take as many pics as you want). These are the best I can do with what I have.

Look for more pics next Thursday (3/17) and two weeks from Monday (3/28) weather permiting. Also, I’m not going to post more pics unless there is enough change to warrant them.

BatwingFan SFA · #6 03-13-2005, 04:06 PM

Saw the pics already &if you look hard enough you can easily see the section of track that's been given primer so far.

I also noticed the blue supports on Paradise plunge/Reefrunner(formerly Tahitti twister) now if I recall correctly the supports were originally gray or black.....seems like everything's coming together slowly but surely & I can't wait til opening day which is less than 4 weeks away

.

I'll be looking forward to your next photo update,especially once vertical construction gets underway.

**Leo C** · #7 03-29-2005, 09:08 AM

on the other side of the park they painted Mind Eraser? That's a pretty good move if it's true.

Andrew W · #8 04-01-2005, 03:28 PM

So, with weather looking to be bad over the weekend, I decided to go to SFA to at least get some good any sunny pics before opening weekend. We’ll start with Hurricane Harbor. There was a lot of work going on. A lot of trucks moving, a lot of people working, and a lot of just general hustle and bustle. I did see a few cement trucks there and one of those trucks that look like they have a huge bendy-straw tube attachment coming out of their top. Do you know what I mean? I’m not sure what that kind of truck is for, but I do know that it is used to pour large foundations (the bendy-straw attachment thing I’m talking about is used to maneuver the cement to wherever you need it to go). Therefore, I’d guess the foundations and footers for the new slides are being poured. Shouldn’t be long before vertical construction starts, but I’m guessing you still won’t see any vertical construction until opening day. As for slide parts in the parking lot, yup, all still there, and all in the same state that they were in the pics Sam took. The one interesting thing I did see was in the one pic of the waterpark...

Seems they’re painting Reef Runner and Paradise Plunge (the complex formerly known as Tahiti Twister) a nice teal blue and yellow. Seems odd considering that Tornado, which will go right next to it, will essentially be the same colors, just different shades, but it’s still nice to see that the old slides will be getting a nice new look. I’d like to hope that the Deer Park Plunge will also be repainted given it’s very old looking color scheme. Hammerhead (Formerly the Black Hole), the blue one, might also be in the middle of repainting. I thought I saw that the end of it had been primed, and you can see the white in the pic, but it may have just been part of Mako sticking out from behind it.

As for Mind Eraser, it appears that the entire track has been painted. There are two new pics showing off Mind Erasers sporty new look attatched...

Again, sorry for the grainy pictures, but you get the idea. The pictures skews the color a little; it’s more of an orangeish-yell0w, or a golden color than the yellow that appears in the picture. I really couldn’t tell if the red supports had been repainted or not, but to say the least, they haven’t been primed. The hand railing on the steps is still teal. The good news is, with the track done, they can start testing, and the ride should be ready for opening week. Then, if it isn’t done by opening day, they can always paint everything else during the week when the park is closed.

Well, enjoy! I’ll have more pictures either Saturday or Sunday from inside the gate as long as the weather is decent, otherwise, look for more pictures opening weekend.

pretzel-loop · #9 04-01-2005, 06:45 PM

The pictures look great Coaster Lover, thanks for the update. I'll post them when I get a second.

dcs221 · #10 04-01-2005, 07:29 PM

The new slides look cool, but SFA really needs a speed slide in Hurricane Harbor. Their slides aren't all that thrilling, though 2 of them are pretty fun (you actually get airtime lol.)

Andrew W · #11 04-01-2005, 07:57 PM

I couldn't agree more dcs221. But before you get too many big ideas about adding more to the waterpark, take a look at this overhead pic:

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/add...=3&opt=0&addr=

Where do you expand? For starters, SFA seems to have a thing about removing trees. VERY few trees have been removed since the park became Six Flags. You can see from this 1993 image that almost no trees were removed for Batwing or Superman or most all of Gotham City for that matter:

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/add...=3&opt=0&addr=

I know that some of the land is protected, and I also know that they are only allowed to use 50% of the land they own, the rest must be preserved. I'm pretty sure they also have a requirement that they need to replace every tree that they remove. They have a ton of strange rules and regulations when building anything at all there at SFA. However, SFA brings the county like $700,000 a year in taxes, the largest source of money for the county. Because of this, the county is more willing to help the park out in any way they can because the better the park does, the more money the county gets.

With that background info, look at the area around Hurricane Harbor. There's that cleared field behind the wavepool, but you would still need to build the path over to there. All of those strips of land between the waterpark and the parking lots are wooded and/or on a pretty good slope, so you really can't build there either. And there really isn't anywhere to squeeze another slide in the current Hurricane Harbor either. You can't take over that parking space because even that third lot is beginning to be ised more and more often. If/when they expand the waterpark again, I'd guess it will be another large expansion. Most likely into the field behind the wavepool. I;d like to see a big body slide complex go in, similar to the old Hurricane Mountain at SFWOA or the new slide complex going in behind the wavepool at SFGAm. I'd also like to see a master-blaster slide and one of those toboggan race slides. One of those surfing simulators would be pretty cool too. But, all pipe dreams.

I really like what they are doing this year. It's really going to make it look and feel like a completly new waterpark. Hopefully SFA's Hurricane Harbor, along with all the other additions to the other SF parks will result in a positive groth year for SFI. THAT ALONE would be the thing we need most if we hope to see more additions next year. If SFI as a whole has a good 2005 and SFA has a good 2005, a new large attruse.

Andrew W · #12 04-02-2005, 04:09 PM

Another quick update: I went to SFA today for their Early Season Pass Processing and to try and get some pictures. Let’s start with construction. I didn’t take any pictures of the ride pieces. Look at Sam Mark’s pics for those. Any pictures I would have taken would have shown the exact same thing, nothing has changed in the parking lot. There was no fence around the ride pieces or anything, if I had wanted, I probably could have gone right up and touched them, but I resisted. Groundwork on Bahama Blast is well underway as seen in the first pic. (DCP_0733)

You can see that cement has yet to be poured for this attraction, but I stand by that I saw a foundation pouring truck along with cement trucks yesterday. Possibly they were pouring for Tornado or Buccaneer Beach, neither of which I could get a clear view of. I’m having a really hard time trying to interpret this pic. According to the park map, the splash down pool should be right next to the splashdown pool for Reef Runner and Paradise Plunge, but if you look in the next two pics, there is a building already where the splash down pool should be. (DCP_0732 and DCP_0734)

My guess is that you are seeing ground work for the main ride tower and the footers for the tube return conveyer belt going from right to left, but you’re guess is as good as mine until construction continues further. You can also better see the yellow and teal paint going on Reef Runner and Paradise Plunge in those last two pics. Paint has also started to be applied to some of the buildings. In the next pic you can see the bright new yellow and green paint job being applied to the back of Coconut Cove Trading Co. (I believe before it was either brown or tan…more of an earth tone color). I think that’s primer on the roof, but I’m really not sure. Maybe it always looked that way, but hopefully the roof will be painted soon enough too. (DCP_0739)

Finally, in the last pic, you can also see the back of Coconut Cove Trading Co., but more importantly you get a different view of that pretty new paint job on Mind Eraser. (DCP_0736)

I really didn’t notice anything else unusual around Hurricane Harbor. I know the rain this weekend has pretty much stopped all work as right now, all the work is ground work and painting and it’s pretty hard to do either of that in the rain. Not much else from anywhere else in the park that I could see without going through the front gates. One final strange thing I did notice was along the road out of the first parking lot and into the second lot, ALL of the trees have a bright orange band wrapped around them. There were also a few trees in the rest of the first lot with the same orange band wrapped around them. I have two possible explanations for this. The first is that they are precautionary bands. Construction equipment needs to travel this path to go from the second lot where the pieces are stored into the water park. The bands could be wrapped around the trees as a possible way to make the trees more visible so large moving trucks don’t accidentally hit them during construction. I mean, the marked trees are quite big and it would be a shame for them to lose one. My other guess is that they are being marked for removal. The park already was approved to build a tram lane many years ago when it became a Six Flags park. By removing the marked trees, they would widen the roads around the parking lot in all the right places to build a tram lane. Hopefully, if this is the case, they will transplant the trees and not just cut them down. There is the equipment out there to completely remove a tree of their size, intact, and move it elsewhere. It would be wonderful to have trees of these sizes in the Gotham city area of the park.

Well, that’s all the news for now. I know pretzel-loop was planning on going today or tomorrow, so I’m sure he’ll post my pics and/or his pics on his site soon enough if you want some pics with much better zoom or are just having trouble accessing my pics. I’ll be at the park opening day (exactly one week from today) and I’ll be taking more pics from all around the park then. Look for a full trip report with pics next weekend!

Martin · #13 04-03-2005, 02:38 PM

I am not really following the construction of this but it looks like this HH will have some fun slides.

pretzel-loop · #14 05-22-2005, 07:50 PM

Well, it's less than a week tell it premiers for all to enjoy. Here is a construction update for everyone:

http://www.sfafans.org/SFA%205-22/index.html

nicktheride · #15 06-14-2005, 05:05 PM

Well. Hurricane Harbor is now open, i think. So have anyone been there and taking photos of the ''new'' waterpark? Because i would love to see how the waterpark has turned out.

I kind of love waterpark now that I have see have nice they can be with the new waterparks that are poping up everywhere now, as Hurricane Harbor at SFGAdm and SFA and Wildwater Kingdom at Geauga Lake, just to name a few.