Two members of the Imboden United Methodist Church traveled to Paragould Saturday to take part in Early Response and Relief Training for natural disasters in our area.
The purpose for the training is to allow volunteers from Northeast Arkansas to help those effected by storm damage and other disasters. The first 8 hour course focused on team assembly and safety, other training meetings will be scheduled in the future. The Northeast Arkansas United Methodist Early Response Team covers an area roughly from Marion Arkansas to the Missouri/Arkansas Line to the north.
Attending from Imboden were Pastor Bob McMillon of the Imboden and Smithville United Methodist Churches and Buddy Williams, the Imboden UMC Disaster Coordinator both of which had experiences with the relief efforts for the Marmaduke area tornado and the recent ice storms in the Imboden area.
The mission of the team is to enter the effected area once Fire/EMS have made the area safe and help residents with clean up at no cost to them. The current plan is for volunteers from the Northeast Arkansas group to deploy for 3 day missions until the work is complete.