AUGUSTA – It was supposed to be a realistic drill simulating a terrorist attack, but the scene behind the auditorium at the Togus Veterans Center in Augusta on Saturday was surreal, with memories of the televised scenes of the real terrorist attacks fresh in everyone’s memory.

“Oh yes,” said Vincent Cerracusco, the Kennebec County Emergency Management director, “but we started planning for this over a year ago. This really isn’t in response to that.”

Firetrucks, ambulances and police cars formed a border along one side of a parking lot cordoned off with yellow tape. Firefighters, emergency personnel and National Guardsmen in full body protective suits of different colors lumbered to rescue the victims of a pipe bomb explosion and a cloud of poisonous insecticide.

“We decided to use a scenario with malathion in a pipe bomb,” Cerracusco said, referring to the poisonous chemical. “We had thought about making the agent sarin, but this stuff is something anybody could get at their local Wal-Mart.”

Sarin was the nerve gas unleashed by a terrorist group in a Tokyo subway in 1994, killing 12 and injuring thousands of Japanese.

Lt. Col. Gerry Dunlap, commander of the Waterville-based 22-man National Guard unit established last year to respond to nuclear, chemical or biological attacks, said the scenario was a credible one.

“This is a possibility,” he said. “An explosive device is a way to disperse a substance broadly, but when you do so, you minimize the effect of some of the agent because the explosive effect would evaporate some of it.”

Dunlap said his unit has been conducting a field training exercise every month, but he said those involving first responders, like local fire departments and other emergency units, are the best.

“They are the first ones at a scene,” he said. “We are here to back them up.”

Cerracusco said the planning for the training session began more than a year ago. He said this weapons of mass destruction drill involved police to a greater degree than usual with police catching the terrorist who had placed two pipe bombs in a public building, one laced with malathion.

“In this scenario, we had one go off causing several causalities, but the second one did not and had to be taken care of by the bomb squad,” Cerracusco said.

The drill was held at Togus because the facility must hold this type of major training exercise at least once a year. In addition to Togus fire and police departments, units from Augusta, Waterville, Sidney and Winthrop were part of the exercise, along with Maine State Police and Kennebec County deputy sheriffs.

“Yeah, we learned some things,” said Richard Beausoleil, Togus fire chief. “We need to do a better job of communicating between all the agencies, that was clear.”

Talking with officials from the Maine Emergency Management Agency, or MEMA, and FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, after the exercise, Beausoleil also said he would set up his command post in a different location. It was set up in a parking lot adjacent to the bomb scene. He also said the decontamination area, both for victims and firefighters, was too close to the blast area

Cerracusco agreed. He said there would likely be many other changes considered after observers of the exercise complete their reports in a few weeks.

“No exercise is perfect,” Cerracusco said. “We do these to learn how to handle the real thing.”

Art Cleaves, director of MEMA, said several training exercises are held every year across the state, most designed for handling accidents and natural disasters, as well as terrorist attacks. He said he would like to see more training exercises of all types.

“We all know we could be a target here in Maine, and we are working as hard as we can to be ready for something we hope will never happen,” he said. “And we also have to be ready for the natural disaster, like another ice storm.”

Cleaves acknowledged much remains to be done to prepare the state for a possible terrorist attack, or an accident or natural disaster that could include hazardous materials. He said MEMA is in the process of setting up eight teams across the state that can respond to an attack, or accident, within an hour.

“Some teams are pretty well together, some are not,” he said, “and while we have some equipment, we don’t have all we need.”

John True, South Portland fire chief and president of the Maine Fire Chiefs Association, agreed progress has been made. But he is very concerned about the lack of key equipment, much of it very expensive.

“For example, we have the encapsulated suits in our unit, but we do not have any of the detection devices we should have,” he said. “And I know in other areas, there is not enough suits or a shortage of other equipment and some of these suits can cost thousands of dollars.”

Cleaves said MEMA is about to buy $1.5 million worth of emergency gear for the teams, but said that will not meet the entire need. He said he expects that additional federal funds will be made available to buy any needed equipment.

Even the National Guard unit is not fully equipped. The unit is supposed to have a mobile analytical lab, but is making do with field test units on a folding table. And the soldiers have not completed all of their training and testing.

“We have completed about 90 percent of our training,” Dunlap said, “but we are looking to become certified whenever they tell us to come and take the test.”