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Engineers were involved as consultants but their assessment was cast aside.

> What’s more, according to court documents, the investigators learned that on July 3, 2014, one week before the ride’s grand opening, an engineering firm hired by Jeff and Schooley to perform accelerometer tests on Verrückt’s rafts had issued a report suggesting that if the combined weight of the three passengers in a raft was between 400 and 550 pounds—the weight Jeff and Schooley had agreed was appropriate—there was a chance the raft would go airborne on the second hill. The ride opened anyway, with the weight range unchanged.

In the end, no expert vouched for the ride’a safety.

> Kansas City reporters began digging. They quickly learned that their state, like Texas, allows water parks to be self-inspected. (Under the headline “The making of Schlitterbahn’s Verrückt water slide: Too much, too fast?” a Kansas City Star article concluded that “the ultimate safety of [Verrückt] mostly began and ended with those inspired to build it.”)