JOHNS HOPKINS RESPONSE CENTER:

How governments can best prevent, prepare and respond to mass casualties, whether from natural events such as Hurricane Katrina or a terror attack, is the mission of a new center led by Johns Hopkins University. A $15 million, three-year grant will establish The Center for the Study of High Consequence Event Preparedness and Response, one of a number of Homeland Security Centers of Excellence nationwide, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff announced. Chertoff said work done at the center will help provide “reasonable and robust” security through decisions that are based “not simply upon anecdote or emotion or what happen to be the passing topic in the news, but based on upon sustained and thoughtful consideration of what the risks really are.” The use of models and simulations to help in risk management and decision-making will be a focus of the center’s 90 investigators, who are spread over eight states and the District of Columbia, center officials said.

Chertoff pointed to recent changes in airline security measures as an example of the need to constantly adapt to an ever-changing security environment.