Great Park is Having a Not-So-Great Week

When the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station shut down a few years ago the citizens of Orange County decided to take a perfect location for a new regional airport and turn it into something called the "Great Park". I've long though of it as a "Great Waste of an Airport That We Really Needed".

After all these years there's not much to the Great Park yet. Probably the most useful thing there right now is the RV parking lot where my neighbor keeps his RV and boat. They also have the Great Park balloon, which I have yet to be able to ride because either the crowds have been too large or the winds too high on the two occasions I've gone over there, and right now they're operating an ice skating rink. That rink became the scene of a fatal accident:

An Irvine woman who was ice-skating at Orange County Great Park has died after suffering a head injury during a fall at the rink, authorities said Wednesday.

Cherlynn Tang, 49, died Tuesday night at Western Medical Center in Santa Ana, according to the Orange County coroner's office.

Tang had been skating with her teenage children Sunday afternoon and was leaving the Great Skate rink at the end of a 45-minute session, according to Irvine city officials. She slipped and fell backward.

Park staff members called 911, and Orange County Fire Authority paramedics responded. Rescuers treated Tang at the rink and took her to the hospital.

Irvine Mayor Sukhee Kang said in a statement that the city Department of Public Safety was investigating the accident.

Just a few days ago some guy jumped out of the Great Park balloon with a parachute and got away safely. That could have been ugly too.

The place might have been safer as an airport.