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The Detective of Disaster Zones: How a Red Crosser Reunites Lost Families 

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She still remembers her first missing persons case from eight years ago. An older woman was frantically looking for her daughter and granddaughter who had disappeared after Hurricane Harvey hit Texas and Louisiana. Kathy Kennard, an American Red Cross volunteer, was assigned to track them down, and eventually located the pair! 

“She sobbed and sobbed when I told her they were safe in a shelter,” remembers Kathy, who is a Reunification supervisor for the Red Cross. “It’s the most rewarding thing.”  

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You Don’t Have to Be a Nurse to Help: Volunteer’s Story Shows There’s a Role for Everyone at the Red Cross  

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Tammy Salwasser from Alameda County thought she had to be a nurse to volunteer with the American Red Cross.   

“I first heard about it from a girlfriend of mine who was a nurse and she would deploy,” says Tammy. Her friend encouraged her to join as a volunteer, but Tammy’s work experience was in customer service and sales; so, she didn’t think she was qualified to help. That is, until she learned that there is no requirement for specialized credentials for many volunteer roles, since the Red Cross provides free training.   

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Red Cross Volunteer Brought Hope and Housing Help to LA Fire Survivors and Others 

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A Red Crosser surveys damage caused by fires in LA 

What happens when you have nowhere to go after a disaster? What if your neighborhood is destroyed, or your home is no longer safe? For those affected by the January 2025 fires in Los Angeles, Calif., the American Red Cross was there to supply safe shelter, food, relief supplies, financial assistance, comfort and a specific service that only Sue Trautman and her team can provide. 

Sue, a Red Cross Northern California Coastal Region volunteer, arrived in LA about a week after the fires devastated communities across the city. She set up shop in the Red Cross offices downtown and got right to work. Sue served on the Shelter Resident Transition Team — a group of volunteers that helps evacuees in shelters create a plan to move into more stable long-term housing. 

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“A Very Different Beast”: Red Cross Volunteer Recalls the Devastation of Los Angeles Wildfires 

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It had been a children’s playground in Altadena, Calif. Now, a melted toy sat upon a melted jungle gym. Scraps of canopy were whipping in the wind. Now, it was just burned wreckage in the wake of the wildfire. Dave Crocker remembers it clearly almost a year later. “It stopped me short,” he says. 

He was in Los Angeles —the place where he was born, had grown up and gone to college. Where wildfires were a fact of life. Dave is an American Red Cross volunteer who has seen the aftermath of numerous wildfires first-hand. But this fire: it had been unusual. 

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Investing in Preparedness: Inside the CAP Bus Tour 

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When torrential rain opened over California in the winter of 2023, few could have imagined the devastation that would follow. Fueled by rare atmospheric rivers, communities were flooded with destruction like they had never seen before. Among them was Pajaro, a small Monterey County town, where homes and livelihoods were destroyed.  

While this disaster did leave behind broken levees, it also ignited a new vision for preparedness, particularly in vulnerable communities where disasters repeatedly hit the hardest.  

That realization quickly became the impetus to launch the 18th Red Cross Community Adaptation Program (CAP) across the country out of Monterey County. This is an innovative Red Cross initiative designed to strengthen local partner networks in disaster-prone areas, ensuring families have the tools and support they need before the next emergency strikes. 

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Lyra Kelly: Just Trying to be Helpful through the American Red Cross 

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Lyra Kelly demonstrates the versatile ways volunteers can help people following a disaster. Although she has management experience, here she is driving a forklift in order to get supplies delivered to families in need. (Photo courtesy of Lyra Kelly) 

I first met Lyra Kelly when we were both deployed (aka sent out to a disaster response operation) to help people severely affected by the Spring 2025 tornadoes in St. Louis. Well-organized and skilled in the proprietary programs of the American Red Cross, she was the Operations Management Supervisor, responsible for organizing all of us volunteers—some of whom were supporting people in shelters, some assigned to hotels—as well as the logistics of delivering food, fulfilling supply orders and transporting volunteers to their duties across the disaster area.  

Little did I know how incredibly experienced she was. 

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