Tagged: disaster

The University of Missouri has started a research center on disaster and terrorism in hopes of boosting training for mental health workers.

Assistant communications professor J. Brian Houston recently received a $2.4 million federal grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. He wants to study the long-term emotional turmoil faced by disaster and terror victims.

The center will employ a university social worker to train school teachers and counselors in Joplin, Kansas City, St. Louis and New Orleans in crisis intervention.

Gov. Jay Nixon has asked the federal government to declare 114 Missouri counties agriculture disaster areas because of drought conditions.

Nixon's office says in a release that if the counties are designated as agriculture disasters, farmers in those counties would be able to receive assistance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farm Service Agency. The federal aid would also include emergency loans for losses to crops and livestock from the ongoing drought.