[en] Reducing the risk from potentially severe accidents by appropriate accident management strategies is receiving increased attention from the international reactor safety community. Considerable uncertainty still surrounds some of the physical phenomena likely to occur during a severe accident. The USNRC, in developing its research plan for accident management, wants to ensure that both the developers and implementers of accident management strategies are aware of the uncertainty associated with the plant operators' ability to correctly diagnose an accident, as well as the uncertainties associated with various preventive and mitigative strategies. The use of a particular accident management strategy can have both positive and negative effects on the status of a plant and these effects must be carefully weighed before a particular course of action is chosen and implemented. By using examples of severe accident scenarios, initial insights are presented here regarding the indications plant operators may have to alert them to particular accident states. Insights are also offered on the various management actions operators and plant technical staff might pursue for particular accident situations and the pros and cons associated with such actions. The examples given are taken for the most part from the containment and release phase of accident management, since this is the current focus of the effort in the accident management area at Brookhaven National Laboratory. 2 refs