Walt, Ron & Nicole
We’re nearing the end of our second week here at Mr. Disney’s World in Orlando, and what a crazy week it’s been.
We spent our first few days doing the usual things around these parts — visiting the theme parks, eating, taking wonderful pictures, eating, getting into the hot tub at our resort, and eating. The usual stuff, indeed, and since we’ve come here every year for a while, we’re used to it. It’s enjoyable.
But this week — well, well. For starters, we were glued to our TV screens — and to our favorite Orlando local newscast — as the station’s ace meteorologists tracked what started out as a pesky subtropical storm way out in the Atlantic.
They started reporting the existence of this baby about a week ago, but it wasn’t until this past Monday that things got a bit more serious. That was the day the “subtropical” weathermaker became “tropical,” and by that time it had been given the name Nicole.
And soon after that, the experts started telling us Nicole was heading our way, here in Orlando. And further, they said, by the time it hit Florida’s east coast — only about 50 miles away — that puppy would be transformed into a hurricane — specifically a Category 1 hurricane.
That’s about the weakest hurricane one can get, and it was certainly weaker than the Cat 4 monster that had devastated Florida only a few weeks ago and caused billions in damage. But any hurricane is dangerous, and the fact this one came so quickly after the last one left Floridians in a state of resignation, not to mention disgust and a certain amount of fear.
We watched the slow approach of Tropical Storm Nicole for a couple of nights on Channel 6. It has an excellent team of meteorologists, led by the top-notch Tom Sorrells. We’ve watched Tom and the Channel 6 news team over the years we’ve been coming here. They’re extraordinarily good. The station’s anchors are big-market, indeed — they know the lay of the land and have a ton of on-air credibility. And to top it off, Channel 6’s reporters are seasoned and energetic — and the newscast presentation is both flashy and journalistically solid.
And this past week, everyone there had to be on top of their game. The news folks not only had a pending hurricane bearing down on their viewing area, but they had this little thing called the midterm election to cover. You might have heard about a couple of the candidates — the governor, Ron DeSantis, who just might be the next Republican presidential nominee (if Republicans are smart enough to nominate him), and a U.S. Senator named Marco Rubio, who made quite a name for himself a few years ago by running for the presidential nomination himself.
As Election Day approached, so did Nicole. Channel 6 handled both with aplomb. The station has 16 reporters and five meteorologists, not to mention its nine anchors and three sports reporters and, of course, a big team of production people you never see on the air — producers, writers, photogs, editors and many more. And they were busy.
On Election Day, the station led, of course, with the approaching weathermaker — but gave plenty of coverage to the voting, with reporters positioned around the state and live shots galore. As you might have heard, Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Rubio annihilated their opposition — but there were plenty of other races to cover. And before I forget — during the run-up to the election, we saw the usual TV ads that candidates buy on newscasts — and, frankly, they looked much the same as the ads we saw in California before we got here. The usual nonsense, lies and smears. You know what I mean.
Then came Wednesday. With the vote count behind them, the TV news crews could devote their full attention to the incoming storm, which had finally gotten the designation of “hurricane.” The storm track kept wavering a bit, but by Wednesday night it had settled right over the top of us at Disney World. Hours before, we’d already started getting pummeled by off-and-on rain and winds.
We’d never been in a hurricane — an amazing admission, I realize, considering we’d worked in TV news all around the nation — but we’d watched enough coverage to know that — first, Disney would shut down its theme parks but let people stay inside the resorts — and, second, that those people would start buying every food item off the shelves to stockpile.
Yes, both those things happened. Late Wednesday morning, Disney announced the parks’ closure,
starting late that afternoon. I immediately walked over to the little store near our resort room and bought plenty of yogurt and fruit cups and boxes of graham crackers — enough to keep us for a couple of days. With the forecast indicating that Nicole’s landfall would come around midnight and that — for hours after that — rainfall would be constant with high winds — we figured we weren’t going outside Thursday morning.
And then we stayed inside the rest of the day Wednesday as the rain intensified. Of course, we also watched TV — and by that afternoon, all the local stations had pre-empted other programming and started continuous newscasts. Hurricanes, you see, are the Super Bowls for local stations. You have to cover them wall-to-wall, of course, because they are life-threatening events. And all three network-affiliated local stations here did quite well in their coverage — though Channel 6 had more and better reporting and anchoring than the others.
But kudos to all — and especially to Tom Sorrells of Channel 6 — who stayed on the air 18 straight hours during the station’s continuous coverage, giving live weather updates four times an hour. He never took a break during that time. Trust me — that’s not easy. He did a great job.
We woke up Thursday morning to high winds and rain. But the eye of Nicole had already passed over us. Disney announced its parks would re-open later that afternoon, and — even as the rain continued — things began getting back to normal. And there we were, by Thursday night, back at the Magic Kingdom park — for a “Christmas party.” You had to buy special tickets for the evening — and that reduced the normal crowds enough so we could actually get into and onto our longtime favorite rides.
It was a joyous Thursday evening, capped off by Mickey’s Christmas parade. Lots of floats and Disney characters and Christmas music, all of which we’d seen before. And so, likely, had the thousands of others who lined the parade route along with us. One of them — whose name was Meredith — had driven down from Georgia just that day with her family and two children. Turns out this was about the 40th time Meredith had been to Disney World — the first time being when her parents brought her when she was a baby.
She watched the parade raptly — smiling all through it. So did the rest of us. Across the street, I watched young mothers holding up their kids — and those children were waving at the Disney characters as they marched by. Those youngsters will be devoted Disney fans the rest of their lives. At the same time, I saw an old man, sitting in a wheelchair as his wife stood alongside. He had one of the biggest smiles of the night. I bet he’s been a Disney fan since the ’50’s, when Walt had his black-and-white show on ABC-TV.
Sometimes friends ask us why we keep coming back to Disney World. After all, we’ve been here so often. Well, Thursday evening provided an answer: This is the place where the “real world” gets shut out for a time — where the cares and worries of life get tossed aside — and where boys and girls — young and old — put aside their differences and not only peacefully co-exist — but enjoy it.
That’s why we come back. Thank you for all this, Mr. Disney.