The Office of Emergency Management today previewed its Advance Disaster Management Simulator, which is designed to help emergency personnel train to work together at the scene of disasters.

The simulator, which is located at a Bushwick warehouse, looks like a giant video game, with three wraparound monitors, but OEM Commissioner Joseph Bruno says it's serious business.

"This allows us to look at the whole citywide incident management system in a realistic scenario and have them work together," Bruno said. "These are the people who will be running emergencies and run them today in New York City. They run them under the existing system. This is a tool to let them get better at it."

Scenarios featured on the $450,000 simulator include fires, explosions, and hazardous materials situations. The training sessions are a high-tech version of the full-scale field exercises that OEM stages from time to time. Those often involve thousands of personnel and can cost anywhere from $150,000 to $700,000.

The day W. Craig Fugate took over Florida's Division of Emergency Management in 2001, the state faced a major crisis. Florida was in the midst of a drought so serious that then-Gov. Jeb Bush said he was praying for rain.

In 2004, Fugate faced the opposite problem: four powerful hurricanes that dumped rain in biblical proportions.

Now Fugate, 49, faces his biggest challenge ever. He has been tapped by President Obama to take over the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which became notorious under Michael Brown for its fumbling response to Hurricane Katrina.

The Department of Homeland Security better be ready for its close-up, because new secretary Janet Napolitano is looking to shine some light on everything from the handling of Hurricane Katrina recovery to future National Planning Scenarios—and calling for action to boot.

In testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security Wednesday, Napolitano laid out more than a dozen “action directives” she’s issued since taking her post in January. The directives call for reassessing current practices to increase communication and transparency, save money, and eliminate duplicated efforts.

Emergency Management Agency were working behind the scenes throughout the Washington metropolitan region to monitor events and direct pre-positioned federal aid to the city in case of emergency. Compare that scenario with the second Bush inauguration four years ago, when fewer than 20 officials were on hand.

FEMA's heightened role is a testament to the agency's newfound competence and capability, says David Paulison, the career firefighter Bush tapped to take over the agency after its disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina in fall 2005.

Paulison and his deputy, Harvey Johnson, the retired three-star admiral who helped manage the Coast Guard's widely praised response to Katrina before joining FEMA, will officially step aside on Wednesday morning. Until the Obama administration names their successors, two career emergency managers -- Nancy Ward and Dave Garrett -- will be acting administrator and acting deputy administrator, respectively.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has stretched its exercise capacities with the opening of the National Exercise Simulation Center on January 12. The center, which was mandated as part of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act, will offer virtual and live all-hazard preparedness and response simulations.

The center is key to creating a Federal Coordination Center at FEMA headquarters, according to a FEMA press release. Other pieces of the effort include the Disaster Operations Directorate and National Response Coordination Center. When fully functional, FEMA will provide coordinated planning, training, and operational support to emergency officials at the local, state, regional, and federal levels.