G8 SUMMIT - SPRING 2004 STATE OF GEORGIA - CIVIL DISTURBANCE EVENT

CRA, Inc. supported the state of Georgia with full-scale exercise assistance in preparation for the G8 Summit. These exercises were intended to improve Georgia's Mobile Field Force (MFF) first response capabilities to weapons of mass destruction incidents. The State conducted two Civil Disturbance/Terrorism full-scale exercises, stressing a coordinated, regional response from over 2,000 State police officers and National Guard civil disturbance units.

Unlike other full-scale exercises, Georgia had requested that the exercise support team manage all aspects of the two exercises except for supply of the exercise facility (i.e., plan, design, logistically support, control, evaluate, deliver, document, and debrief the exercises). As an additional requirement, both exercises had to be held on weekends to accommodate the National Guard units of the MFF. The State also requested that the exercise support team use subject matter experts/instructors for Managing Civil Unrest in Threat Incidents as the evaluation staff for both exercises.

In addition to all of the anticipated planning and logistical aspects of large, full-scale exercises, CRA staff designed and executed both exercises within a time limitation of seven weeks after the initial request. In fact, once selected as the support team, CRA had only three weeks to plan and execute the first weekend exercise. The second followed four weeks later.

Each exercise consisted of multiple, hands-on stations that challenged MFFs with unique response situations, such as crowd control of more than 300 mock protestors, actual deployment from a forward operations center, and operating in a live munitions setting. Each weekend exercise culminated in a large protest event that required all participants (more than 1,000 for each weekend) to demonstrate their knowledge of proper emergency management.

Due to the immediacy of the G-8 Summit date, CRA staff produced and delivered a draft after-action report (AAR), including the improvement plan matrix, within 20 days of these exercises. This was done to provide enough time for MFFs to properly train on issues identified in the draft AAR.

In summary, CRA-USA developed comprehensive, full-scale exercises to assist the State of Georgia with identifying response coordination issues in an effort to better prepare police and National Guard units for the G-8 Summit. These full-scale exercises represented the only opportunity for all of these units to train together prior to the Summit.