On November 13,
2005, 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.
On
October 28, 2005 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 in April 2005.
Both the April and the November exercise series
were highly successful, receiving major local
and national media coverage. |