MARTA officials Friday defended the agency’s response to an electrical incident that left more than 100 passengers scrambling from a packed, rush-hour train as it filled with smoke.
Witnesses reported that MARTA employees seemed panicked and provided little guidance on what to do Thursday evening as the chaotic situation unfolded near the North Avenue station.
MARTA officials acknowledged they could have done a better job of communicating with passengers on the southbound train but said they were generally happy with the agency’s actions in Thursday’s incident.
“We are taking all strides to assess what’s happened,” spokesman Erik Burton said Friday. “Wherever there’s a gap in our process, we’re looking to rectify that situation and be better prepared.”
No one was injured in the incident, and normal service was restored by Friday morning. It comes at a critical time for MARTA. Ridership is up as Atlanta commuters seek to navigate around a collapsed section of I-85. MARTA is hoping to transform some of those new riders into regular customers.
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Thursday’s incident began at about 6:20 p.m., when the train stopped in the tunnel near the Midtown station. Lt. Aston Greene of MARTA Police and Emergency Management said an arc of electricity from a high-voltage rail – not a fire – apparently created smoke that filled the train.
Jeremy Zhao was headed from Buckhead toward the North Avenue station, when the train stopped. “We were just sitting there and suddenly smoke started building in the cabin,” Zhao said.
He waited while other passengers ran off the train and moved to different cars. “Everyone is freaking out,” he texted his girlfriend. Then the conductors ran from the front of the train to the back without saying anything, Zhao said.
William Braxton was on his way to the Chamblee MARTA station from the Airport station when he heard a “chilling” announcement from the conductor on the train ahead of him: “Fire, fire stop everything! There is smoke everywhere!”
“He sounded extremely panicked,” Braxton said, “like he truly did not believe he was going to make it out alive.”
Greene said the conductor may have been stressed out, but was likely performing a physical assessment of the train – checking for injuries and ensuring it was safe to leave the train.
“You don’t want to go from a bad situation to another bad situation,” Greene said.
But Burton added, “From what we heard (from passengers), there clearly was a communications gap that we need to address.”
MARTA established a bus bridge to transport riders between stations, though some were closed. The disruption affected many passengers who weren’t on the train.
Dennis Rosebrough of Norcross was trying to catch a train to Doraville, but was turned away at the Peachtree Center and North Avenue stations. He walked to the Arts Center station, where he caught a bus.
Rosebrough commended the bus driver for taking the time to explain the situation. And though it took him three hours to get home, he said the trip could have been worse.
“We were packed in there like sardines,” Rosebrough said. “But we were making the best of the situation.”
Though it took a while to establish the bus bridge, and traffic held up employees rushing to the scene to assist passengers, Greene said the first officer arrived at the scene within minutes.
He said employees get regular emergency training. Earlier this week, some 200 MARTA employees spent the day “training for situations just like this.”
Greene said the agency will create an after-action report from the incident that will include recommendations for corrective action.
“We don’t just sit on an incident like this and wait for it to happen again,” he said. “We learn from it.”
Staff writers Raisa Habersham, Ellen Eldridge and Ana Santos contributed to this report
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