Teams put to the test in hijacking and evacuation drill
On Thursday, 15 October 2026, a section of Northbank Lane became the scene of a carefully staged emergency. The scenario was a vehicle hijacking, and between 10:00 and 11:00, Century City’s safety teams and their partners responded to it as they would to the real thing.
The exercise was led by the Century City Safety, Security and Risk Team, working with Century City Traffic Management, the South African Police Service (SAPS) and several City of Cape Town departments: the Disaster Risk Management Centre, the Fire and Rescue Service and the Events Department. Running alongside the hijacking response was a full emergency evacuation of The Forum. Together, the two scenarios asked teams to manage a volatile incident on the road while moving people safely out of a busy office building close by.
Previous exercises in the precinct have centred on vehicle fires, a multi-vehicle collision on Century Avenue and a gas truck incident in Bridgeways. This year’s drill moved the focus to a crime-related emergency, which places a different set of demands on everyone involved, from the responders at the scene to the teams directing traffic around it.
“A hijacking is a very different situation to a fire or a collision, and we wanted to see how our teams and partners handle that pressure together,” said Kassiem Daniels, Safety & Security Manager at CCPOA. “Running the evacuation of The Forum at the same time meant we were testing several parts of our response at once, which is exactly what a real emergency would ask of us.”
Exercises like this one show how emergency plans hold up in practice. They test how quickly teams arrive and take control of a scene, how clearly information moves between the people on the ground and their partners, and how smoothly a building can be cleared and its occupants accounted for. Just as valuable is what the teams learn afterwards, when they look closely at what worked and where the response can be sharpened.
That work matters because the Century City Safety, Security and Risk Team and Century City First Responders are the first line of response to any fire, medical or traffic incident within the precinct. The first responders have received extensive fire and medical training and are on duty 24 hours a day as part of the safety service provided to all CCPOA stakeholders.
“Every drill teaches us something new,” Daniels added. “Our aim is to make sure that when a real emergency happens, the people who live, work and visit here can trust that we are ready.”
Century City thanks the occupants of The Forum and everyone in and around Northbank Lane for their patience and cooperation during the exercise.
