Wednesday night at the Oakland Zoo’s “Glofari” got a little bit spooky for dozens of people when the power went out and they were stuck on the zoo’s gondola in the dark. Thom Jensen reports.
Wednesday night at the Oakland Zoo’s “Glowfari” got a little bit spooky for dozens of people when the power went out and they were stuck on the zoo’s gondola in the dark.
According to officials, the power went out at around 6:40 p.m. and the outage lasted for about 40 minutes. That meant that there were some people who were stuck on the gondola for a good period of time.
“All of the sudden the power went out. All the lights went off and we were stuck,” said Oakland resident Sam Bloomberg.
Dozens of people were stuck on the popular gondola lift, while workers got generators powered up.
“10 or 15 minutes and then they started a generator. The generator pulled us to the top. We got out. We waited up there a while, and then people decided to walk back down,” Bloomberg said.
But some zoo patrons told NBC Bay Area Wednesday night said that hundreds of people were stuck at the top.
“When we were trying to leave. The gondola was off. So, you couldn’t get down,” said Taylor Boneberg of Clayton.
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Some people said there was just one shuttle van that could carry only about 15 people at a time and each round trip seemed to take forever.
“It was not organized. It was chaotic. They didn’t have enough shuttles. They had no plan, as far as I could see to rescue people,” said Clayton resident Brenda Peters.
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A zoo spokesperson said they will address patron’s concerns and will make it up to anyone who had to leave because of the power outage.
PG&E officials said they are also trying to determine what caused the outage, but that it might be linked to damage to a power line in the area earlier in the day.
