Columbia and Boone County's Office of Emergency Management addressed faith based organization representatives at a conference at Parkade Baptist Church today. The conference covered the topic of disaster response among faith based communities. Office of Emergency Management worker Sherrill Gladney says the idea is to work toward being able to coordinate disaster responses from faith based communities rather than risking each community operating individually and potentially wasting resources.

"Historically, faith based communities have always been disaster responders. They respond to the needs of their community, they always have. And it would be a mistake on our part to not work with such a huge resource."

Cole County sheriff Greg White advised faith communities to formulate crisis plans for themselves as a start, making sure that individual members would be able to survive a disaster. © Copyright 2012, KBIA