Rev. David Myers was in Rapid City Friday and met with representatives of government agencies, emergency management and other groups involved in response to disasters and emergencies.

Myers says they spent time discussing the importance of volunteers helping to prepare for disasters and in helping the community recover from those incidents.

Myers says, "One of the most important things is to be able to hear how the faith based groups and how the voluntary groups are challenged in terms of helping the community prepare for disasters, so this is a great state with a lot of independent minded people, self sufficient people and so to be able to encourage them to prepare for disasters sometimes is a challenge when you haven't has major disasters to prepare for."

Myers says he will take the stories he has heard over the past three days of being in South Dakota back with him to Washington, D.C. and share them with national leaders.

-Tessa Thomas