Stonington ― On Wednesday, a ferry carrying approximately 50 emergency management personnel arrived at the Town Dock in Stonington.

Representatives of local, state and federal agencies played the part of evacuees during a Connecticut Division of Emergency Management and Homeland Security Fishers Island evacuation simulation.

“It was a piece of cake,” said Fishers Island Ferry Captain Chris Newell of the one-hour, nine-mile Long Island Sound crossing and docking in the unusual location.

Last held in 2015, the Radiological Emergency Preparedness Program drill simulates the evacuation procedure for the 200 full-time residents of Fishers Island, N.Y., in the event of a radiological emergency at Dominion Energy’s Millstone Power Station in Waterford.

Millstone houses two nuclear reactors. The first went into service in 1975 and the second in 1986. Dominion Energy purchased the plant in 2000.

Program Supervisor Stephen Henrick explained the program runs on an eight-year cycle, and within that time frame, the state agency conducts numerous drills and evaluations including practicing a contingency plan to evacuate Fishers Island.

Despite Fishers Island being part of New York, Henrick said that because Connecticut is closer, has an existing ferry service to and from the island and houses the nuclear power plant, Connecticut takes responsibility for evacuations.

Wednesday’s drill tackled emergency response in a situation where there has been a release of radiological material, or a release is likely.

Henrick explained that the drill is a condensed version of an actual evacuation, as a nuclear emergency unfolds over days or even weeks, giving far more than a few hours to complete an evacuation.

“You’re looking at days for this to happen, in the worst case,” Daniel Casey III, a Millstone emergency preparedness specialist, said. “There’d be a lot of time for us to fix things before it got that bad.”

In the event of a radiological emergency, Fishers Island Ferry, which operates out of New London, would be unable to return to New London, which is within the 10-mile evacuation radius surrounding the power plant. The ferry service would bring evacuees to Stonington instead, which is outside of the radius.

After arriving in Stonington, evacuees would board school buses that would take them to Windham, the designated host community for Fishers Island residents.

The plans also include contingencies for chaperoning school-aged children, some of whom do not live on the island, until they can be safely reunited with their parents in the host community.

“Part of this demonstration is to make sure that everything we have in our plan is correct,” Henrick said.

“The state and I have been working for several months on the plan on our side, and that’s been ironed out now and is well orchestrated, and we can put that into play at any time,” said Brian Schneider, Stonington’s emergency management director.

“We wanted to confirm for ourselves how the plan would work,” said Gary Machina, a representative of the New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

Machina added that he thought the drill ran smoothly and being a part of it allowed him to gather information on ways New York can contribute to the process.