Terrorism drill is grimly realistic
by Milo Ippolito, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It wasn’t a movie and it wasn’t real life. The mock terrorist attack this weekend at the College Park MARTA station was a training exercise to prepare for the worst.
The federally required disaster drill, simulating a suicide bombing in a subway tunnel, was conducted late Saturday night into early Sunday morning as part of the national defense effort against terrorism.
“Every major city that has subway trains, the Federal Transit Administration is requiring that these drills take place,” said MARTA spokeswoman Steen Miles. “This is all post-Sept. 11, obviously.” Here’s the storyline:
An explosion stops a rush hour train in the tunnel approaching the College Park train station. Police and firefighters are called to the scene. Officers evacuate the platform. “Walking wounded” are escorted off the train. About 30 passengers are severely injured, some of them speared by shards of metal from the blast. Three passengers are dead.
The seriously wounded are given emergency care on the train. Meanwhile, bomb-sniffing dogs check the station for the possibility of additional explosives. Knapsacks left on the platform by the fleeing passengers slow the dogs down.
During the search, a terrorist is found hiding in the tunnel. Officers arrest him without a struggle. But the man has a bomb strapped to him, which police must then deactivate.
The federal government provided $ 50,000 to fund the training.
Federal authorities alerted transit agencies around the country in May that terrorists may be planning a suicide bombing on a subway somewhere in the United States. The alert was based on U.S. intelligence gathered after last year’s terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. The drill is in response to that information, officials said.
Agencies participating included MARTA police, East Point, College Park and Hapeville police departments, Atlanta and Fulton County police, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, emergency medical services agencies and area hospitals.
The details were kept secret from responders until the story unfolded in front of them.
“They had no idea what the scenario was going to be,” MARTA police Chief Gene Wilson said.
To add to the realism, makeup artists applied gory fake wounds to “victims” who volunteered for the exercise.
With special effects makeup, the artists put a hole in one victim’s head, tore another’s neck open, pierced arms and legs with bolts, broke a nose and turned the least fortunate a deathly shade of gray. The responders would have to find the wounds, figure out what type of injury the victims had and treat them.
“We want them to start instinctively working,” said Pete Mitchell of JPM Productions. “We want it as realistic as we can possibly get it, so the training is as realistic as possible.”
Mitchell has done this for TV’s “Doogie Howser,” the movie “Batman Forever,” the Halloween event FrightFest at Six Flags over Georgia and countless emergency exercises, he said.
Volunteers playing victims included Fulton police academy trainees, MARTA workers, Georgia State and World Congress Center police, and 26 Boy Scouts from Smyrna, who stayed up overnight for the 11:30 p.m.-to-4-a.m. drill.
“I’m going to be one of the people on the platform, one of the hysterical people,” said Boy Scout Tyler McDaniel, while waiting for the action to start.
Consultants from the Center for National Response, a division of military defense contractor Titan Systems Corp., helped design the scenario and observed the response. They also will send an evaluation of the response to MARTA.
“Now is the time to find out what the shortcomings are --- if you have any,” said Gabriel Imperial, one of the Center for National Response observers at the drill. “That’s the whole purpose of training. When the real world situation or event occurs, that’s not the time to find out if you have any faults.”