Disney visitors evacuated from monorail
Visitors to Disney World had to be evacuated from a monorail after the power was knocked out, probably by a bolt of lightning.
Some 120 passengers were led down from the track by fire officers with the aid of hydraulic platforms, but some had to climb through the emergency hatch on the roof after efforts to restart the monorail failed.
The evacuation took four hours, finishing by 22:00 hours. No injuries were reported.
Officials said the breakdown was caused by "a weather related issue" just after 18:00 hrs.
Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler said thunderstorms were occurring in the area at the time but did not confirm if lightning caused the power failure.
Wahler said the outage impacted just one Monorail line and all other lines were running as normal.
Florida is the state most prone to lightning strikes with 475 fatalities recorded in the state since 1959, according to lightning detection company Vaisala.
July is historically the worst month for lightning strikes throughout the US.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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