AMTRAK - WASHINGTON, D.C.

 

It started with a backpack.  The Terrorist chose the backpack carefully.  It had to have enough compartments and be sturdy enough to carry all the bb's, screws and other metal he had chosen for shrapnel, plus the grenade and the C4 -- easier to get with his military connections and less troublesome than TATP -- and headed out the door for Union Station in Washington D.C. to catch the Amtrak train...

CRA provided full support for a full-scale exercise involving Amtrak Rail in Union Station, Washington D.C. on August 26, 2006.  The scenario used Suicide Bombers employing Improvised Explosive Devices in backpacks. The backpack above was stopped because an x-ray identified the contents as suspicious.  Rail bombings have hit Madrid twice, the latest in 2004, London in 2005 and Mumbai in 2006. Rail, especially the various forms of passenger rail, is a target of choice and is vulnerable to terrorist attack.  Al Qaeda has specified that, whenever possible, rail should be selected as a target. By its very nature, public transportation is an extremely transparent and vulnerable network and efforts to improve preparedness and safety for passengers is an ambitious effort. CRA, with its background not only in exercises, but in counter-terrorism is the perfect choice to bring all the essential elements of the scenario together in a realistic fashion.

All response organizations, agencies, and departments realize that homeland security is a shared responsibility in that it will take compatible, mutually supportive Federal, State, local, and private-sector strategies to overcome terrorism. Amtrak and the Washington, DC, District, in conjunction with the surrounding jurisdictions, are committed to supporting Federal, State, and local initiatives that involve the protection of transit systems and other critical infrastructures.

It is more important than ever for jurisdictions to recognize and assess the WMD threat. Federal, State, local and private-sector officials in general, and the response community in particular, must be prepared to recognize and deal with the use of chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive devices in their jurisdictions. This means planning and training, as well as testing protocols, procedures, and policies. In this way, we as a Nation may be able to prevent terrorist attacks, reduce our vulnerability to terrorism, and minimize the damage and recover from attacks that do occur.

Amtrak's Operation Code Black, designed and supported by CRA, was a six-hour multijurisdictional WMD exercise designed to explore the full range of an interagency, coordinated field response to a terrorist attack on the Amtrak transit system at Union Station, Washington, DC.   Although some minor parts of the exercise were enhanced by simulation, most of the exercise was a coordinated response by the real response agencies and control elements from Federal, State, local, and private departments and/or agencies.

Click HERE to contact Scott Mazza or call (703) 535-5209 to discuss how CRA can assist you with exercise development.