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An experimental design responsive to a unique opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of simulation as a training, research, and design environment for crisis management was developed when an actual crisis situation occurred less than a week after the authors had observed and evaluated a full-scale training simulation. The crisis event at the Robert E. Ginna nuclear facility in upstate New York paralleled the simulation in location, content, and scope. The results reported in this paper are based upon a combination of personal interviews and the analysis of written communication logs. Hypotheses were tested concerning the predictive dimensions of the simulation with respect to individual descriptors related to stress and response capabilities, communication descriptors related to content and frequency, and network descriptors related to structure and utilization. The results are interpreted in the context of implications for training. research, and design. The term disaster evokes many different images. Regardless of one's perspective, disaster generally suggests any unexpected, unfortunate experience. For years researchers have been developing frameworks to describe and understand disasters. Beginning with the simplest dichotomy, man-made versus natural [3], frameworks have been developed [4] [7] [ 181 [20] (241 that describe in greater detail characteristics of disasters such as predictability, controllability, scope of impact, and so forth.Each framework describes two major characteristics of disasters: (a) low frequency and (b) high consequence. The relative infrequency of disasters means that past experiences are of limited value in planning future responses while the highconsequence factor implies stress over and above that usually attending first-time situations.In recent years, primarily as a result of the events of Three Mile Island [19], plans and procedures have been developed in order to help individuals plan for and respond to disasters [la] [23]. John Macy, the former head of the Federal 588