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Participating were more than a dozen state agencies, including the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA), California Highway Patrol, CaliforniaVolunteers, California Department of Public Health, California Department of Transportation and the California National Guard.
"I am very proud that California has the best law enforcement and first responders in the world.
LOS ANGELES, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday led California through its largest full-scale port security exercise to test the state's readiness for and response to terrorist attacks.
More than 3,000 emergency responders from approximately 70 local, state and federal agencies were participating in the exercise, codenamed Golden Guardian 2010.
It simulated a terrorist takeover of a passenger ferry near the Port of Long Beach and an active shooter in Shoreline Aquatic Park in Long Beach near Los Angeles.
Golden Guardian 2010, which is a statewide emergency preparedness exercise and is paid for by federal homeland security grants, tested coordination between federal, state and local response and recovery among city, county and state agencies, community-based organizations and the private sector, as well as the state's Standardized Emergency Management System.
But there is always room to improve, and practice makes perfect," said Schwarzenegger. " Exercises like this are so important, because we must be prepared for the real thing. Here in California, if the unthinkable happens, we will be prepared."
"Governor Schwarzenegger has made public safety a top priority, " said Cal EMA Secretary Matthew Bettenhausen. "Training and exercises assure all levels of government and different public safety disciplines can work together to prevent, prepare for, respond to and quickly recover from intentional and natural disasters. These drills are essential to California's overall prevention, response and recovery capabilities."
The Golden Guardian Statewide Exercise Series was first implemented by Schwarzenegger in 2004 and has become an annual statewide exercise series conducted to coordinate prevention, preparation, response and recovery mechanisms of city, county and state governmental entities, and private sector and volunteer organizations.
The goal of the Golden Guardian Exercise Series is to build upon the lessons learned from this and subsequent exercises conducted throughout the nation, as well as real-world events. Golden Guardian is currently the largest statewide exercise program of its kind in the country.
The theme of this year's Golden Guardian exercise, the sixth in the series, is port terrorism. The exercise focuses on the state's response and recovery to multiple terrorist attacks in the Bay Area, Southern Region and Inland Region.
Cal EMA partnered with the U.S. Coast Guard and their Area Maritime Security Training and Exercise Program in the Bay Area Ports, Port of San Diego, and Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. In the Port of Sacramento, Cal EMA is supporting the Sacramento Urban Area Security Initiative during their one-day full-scale exercise.
The Golden Guardian 2010 has also partnered with a full-scale exercise with the San Diego County and the California State University San Marcos responding to multiple shooters at a World Cup Soccer event and the detonation of a "dirty bomb" near the stadium.
