Phil Amtower is the Emergency Management Director of Christian County, Missouri (MO) and the Task Force Leader for MO Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) 1. Phil started the local county volunteer CERT in 2003 and has since trained over 1,000 volunteers. After seeing several large destructive events in the region, Phil decided to form a regional CERT group, which has since been deployed to Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The team has light search and rescue capabilities, can provide shelter support, and can perform wilderness search and rescues, debris removal, damage assessments, wellness checks, and more.