Hurricane Katrina was one of the most expensive and devastating natural disasters in American history [41]. Over half a million people were affected by the hurricane, and the US energy infrastructure was severely damaged [41]. Hurricane Katrina and other natural disasters clearly show the need for improvements in crisis management, especially in training and collaboration among federal, state, and local governments [1,41]. In this paper, we describe Project Ensayo: a socio-cognitive-technical

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... mulator and training facility for upper level emergency managers and a tool for cognitive scientists to study the decision making process under emergency conditions. In particular, we describe how the underlying architecture accommodates the various learning requirements inherent in a dynamic, evolving, and unique organizational structure situated in a highly variable complex threat environment. Keywords-virtual emergency operations center, training simulator, expert systems, crisis management, decision making I.