CRA supported the highly successful City of Atlanta/Midtown Full Scale Exercise focusing on the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit System (MARTA). The exercise employed a simulated and highly-realistic terrorist “attack” on a passenger bus at MARTA's Midtown Station to practice how MARTA and other agencies would respond to a terrorist bombing at a MARTA station.

Several State, local, and private response agencies and control elements as well as the local business community participated, including the MARTA Police Department, the Midtown Business Alliance, City of Atlanta Police and Fire, Atlanta/Fulton County Emergency Management, Grady Emergency Medical Services, St. Joseph’s and Piedmont Hospitals, and Georgia Emergency Management. More than 200 personnel from these organizations participated.

The City of Atlanta broke new ground in preparing for a possible terrorist attack by facilitating the participation of many local Midtown businesses. At the start of the early Sunday morning exercise, Midtown business representatives assembled at a Business Operations Center. CRA helped facilitate the activation of the Center to offer businesses a realistic opportunity to compare respective individual emergency operations plans with a live emergency exercise situation. The Center aided the members of the Midtown Business Alliance in communicating with City agencies and coordinating among themselves on how to respond to such an emergency situation - likely to take place when businesses are in full operation.

The exercise gave all participants, government and private sector alike, the opportunity to explore:

• Emergency response coordination
• Resource integration
• Communication
• Problem identification
• Situation resolution

Regarding communication, the exercise provided an excellent framework for participating agencies to identify possible issues relating to exchanging information across functional areas within the City of Atlanta. In particular, it gave MARTA the opportunity to practice communicating with emergency responders, Atlanta-Midtown businesses, and the State of Georgia under the stress of a simulated crisis situation.

Following the full scale exercise, CRA supported a Senior Leaders Seminar that afforded leaders of the various agencies the opportunity to discuss the interaction their respective agencies would have with response elements and businesses during such an emergency. The seminar helped to review the effectiveness of current State, local, and private plans and agreements that will be activated during a real-world event.

The exercise was part of MARTA's aggressive training program for emergencies. CRA supported a similar series of MARTA transit system exercises conducted at the Atlanta Sandy Springs station prior to the full scale exercise series. Both spring and fall exercise series were highly successful, receiving major local and national media coverage.