Emergecy officials acknowledged some mistakes were made during adrill Thursday morning, but they added that was the point of theexercise that simulated a derailed train leaking chlorine gas indowntown.

“It went OK,” said Brookhaven-Lincoln County Civil DirectorClifford Galey. “We do the exercises to find out what goes rightand what doesn’t go right.”

Overall, Galey said, the exercise showed improvement in someareas noted in previous exercises. However, the first exercise helddowntown and involving a train also created some new problems forofficials to evaluate.

“We did not have a clue how the railroad would respond and whatthey would do,” he said.

Wayne Barfield, a special agent with the Canadian NationalRailroad, assisted incident commanders by adding insight onrailroad policies and procedures during several stages of theexercise.

Early in the drill, firefighters arrived on the scene insimulated Level 2 contamination gear to assist the “injured,” whohad succumbed to the leaking chlorine gas. The railroad would haveresponded in Level 1 containment gear, the highest level, becausethe type of gas had not been determined at that point, Barfieldsaid.

Brookhaven Fire Chief Bob Watts admitted his department made amistake in its desire to get to the scene as quickly aspossible.

“We may have got a little close to the hot zone with what we hadto work with,” Watts said. “In trying to determine the nature ofthe situation, some went in without the necessary preparation.

“Being trained as firemen, you rush to the scene,” he continued,”but in dealing with hazardous material, that’s dangerous.”

Also contributing to the mistake, Watts said, was thatfirefighters somehow learned prior to the exercise which gas wouldbe simulated.

“We already had in our mind it was chlorine and reactedappropriately,” Watts said. “However, we should have went in withno preconceived notions, which would have meant full gear.”

Communications continued to be a problem, officials said. Thatwas partly addressed by the formation of the incident commandcenter, which was used effectively Thursday for the first time.

“We’ve attempted it before, but this was the first time we goteveryone operating in it,” Galey said.

Each agency involved in the drill had a representative at thecommand center to relay information as it was updated andcoordinated efforts with other agencies.

Agencies involved included the Brookhaven Police Department,Brookhaven Fire Department, Lincoln County Civil Defense, King’sDaughters Medical Center, the Southwest Regional Response Team ofMcComb, Mississippi Department of Health and the MississippiEmergency Management Agency, among others.

Galey said he will continue to evaluate the exercise over thenext few days by talking to businesses and homeowners in the”affected” area to see if and how they reacted to the simulatedevacuation.