A haunted hospital for Halloween

By Kirby Lee Davis Dolan Media Newswires OKLAHOMA CITY, OK-- From when he first married his wife, Lynn, Floyd C. Hannah tested different ways to put on a haunted house. "We moved to Oklahoma City right after we got married and we started doing a little haunted house in our apartment for our nieces," said Hannah, the owner of Ehrles Party and Carnival Supply in Tulsa. "That's 37 years ago. And then we did one in our house, did it for the kids' friends and things. Then we did it in our warehouse at Ehrles. So it's just kind of grown all these years, collecting ideas, having fun with it." The family firm took their efforts up a notch last year by opening The 13th Ward, a 40,000-square-foot haunted hospital in a former Reasor's and Walmart site at 220 S. Elm St. in Jenks. By subdividing the interior with solid and fabric walls, the Ehrles team crafted a maze connecting more than 20 rooms, some of those just smaller mazes to mystify and horrify customers. "We kind of start in a hospital," said Tracey Campbell, Hannah's daughter and manager of their 13th Ward Halloween Superstore, 71st and Sheridan in Tulsa. "You start coming through the front door and we just keep taking you deeper and deeper into our crazy psycho ward, and then you exit through our jungle." Hannah started plotting the haunt during last year's presentation. Their creative team finalized plans through the summer to gain city approval in time for the six-week build-out and the October run. "As far as the design, here again we went to St. Louis to another haunted convention, where we intended on purchasing the supplies, so we spent several days looking into the merchandise," said Hannah. "Then we started piecing it together." A crew of 50 people gets into costume to act out The 13th Ward, with another 10 workers behind the scenes. Hannah portrays a knife-wielding psycho, with sparks flying from his crisscrossing blades. His daughter also gets into character after helping set up the show. "I can get into it in less than five minutes," Campbell said with a smile. "I'm one of the quicker ones, but we have some really elaborate makeup and prosthetics. A few people spend at least an hour getting into their makeup." The 30-minute journey takes customers past blood-stained hospital beds, zombie-overrun operating rooms, fog-shrouded hallways and a number of ghoulish delights. An eight-speaker sound system shakes the structure just below the legal limit of 100 decibels. "I think we have a good blend of startling scares," said Hannah. "Our actors are good. I think we have the best music you could ever have that's scary and loud. You've got your smoke and then we have our entertaining items like the vortex tunnel. Everybody that walks up to it virtually will say, "Oh, I hate these!" but then they laugh and have fun with it. Or squishing between the claustrophobia bags. So we have the fun things like that that are entertaining." Based on the first weekends, Campbell expects The 13th Ward to top last year's 10,000 attendance. It also provides a symbiotic boost to sales at both Ehrles, 4430 S. Memorial Dr., and Campbell's Halloween store. "I'm at our store every day and I haunt at our haunted house, so I get to see a lot of people come through and I recognize them," said Campbell. "We've been doing this for 57 years, party supplies, and Halloween, it's just a natural progression for us to do a haunted house." Entire contents copyrighted © 2011 by Dolan Media Company. Published: Mon, Oct 31, 2011