East Lyme ― This is a drill.

Those words were a common refrain in the confines of the Emergency Operations Center on Tuesday morning as members of the town’s emergency management command staff reacted to a simulated terrorist attack on the Millstone Nuclear Power Station.

Flat-screen televisions on the walls of the operations center, which was outfitted in the latest technology courtesy of state Nuclear Safety Emergency Funding for communities most at risk in a Millstone disaster, were filled with images of mock media coverage and pretend plumes of smoke captured from across Niantic Bay.

“Terror at Millstone” was the headline of a simulated news broadcast detailing reports of explosions, gunfire, downed power lines and a massive law enforcement response.

The annual tabletop drill was held Tuesday at local emergency operations centers in a 10-mile radius of the power plant, including those in Groton City, Groton Town, Ledyard, Lyme, Montville, New London, Old Lyme, Waterford and Fishers Island, N.Y.

They participated in conference calls and heard briefings from members of the state Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security, state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) and Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Local emergency plans are tested every other year by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In East Lyme, two evaluators monitored the roughly five-hour exercise and asked questions of officials seated along tables and desks laid out to promote interaction.

The simulation began with a 7:36 a.m. explosion due to “hostile action” in Millstone’s Unit 3, according to a timeline provided by East Lyme Deputy Emergency Management Director Julie Wilson. An hour later, Millstone went to its second-highest emergency level but said there was no radioactive release at that time.

Superintendent of Schools Jeffrey Newton in the exercise ordered schools closed and began dismissal with the schools closest to the power plant. The faux scenario ― controlled by Millstone employee Donna Long from the center of the room as she inserted increasing complications ― evolved to include buses that were prevented from getting to Niantic Center School because parents were rushing to pick up their children. Wilson in her role as deputy emergency management director called for an officer to monitor traffic.

Concerns in the East Lyme operations center arose after a written copy of the governor’s 9:10 a.m. emergency declaration, announced in a conference call, didn’t show up in Wilson’s email box until an hour after it was issued.

Wilson after the exercise said the delay is problematic because the written document could be shared with residents to ensure they understand the importance of taking the recommended precautions.

“This came from the state,” she said. “We can put it out there: ‘This is what the governor is saying.’”

The fake stakes were raised at 9:33 a.m. when officials were advised of a release of radiation from the compromised plant. At 9:40, a siren failure in the north end of town forced officials to direct fire trucks with PA systems to the area.

Talk of potassium iodide filled the local command center after the DEEP radiation director in a conference call recommended the pills, used to protect the thyroid gland from radiation, for members of the general public in the zones closest to the power plant. But he confirmed there was no guidance for emergency workers in those same zones, where all of East Lyme’s public safety facilities are located, to take the pills.

The agency reversed course in the next conference call, when the radiation director said measurements of iodine in the fictitious plume led officials to require the pills for emergency workers.

The cause of the attack was not a subject of discussion in the local emergency operations center, where those in the room focused instead on managing the emergency and addressing public health repercussions that could stem from radiation traveling in a 7-mile-per-hour wind toward East Lyme.

e.regan@theday.com