Preparedness | Your Red Cross Update

Tag Archives: Preparedness

Sound The Alarm: 459 Homes Are Now Safer Thanks to Red Cross Volunteers, Local Fire Departments and Community Partners

Posted on May 12, 2026 by redcrossnorcalstaff

By Quinn Aftab

The American Red Cross is widely known to respond to disasters caused by home fires across the nation – but what about preventative action?

All the tools and assets necessary for a *Sound the Alarm* event. Photography by: Pooja Klebig | American Red Cross

As part of the Home Fire Campaign, the Red Cross does not only seek to aid communities in home fire recovery, but also in the necessary steps that lead to home fire prevention. By installing free smoke alarms in residential neighborhoods and educating communities about home fire safety, Red Cross chapters ensure a holistic approach to protection is enacted. As of today, the Red Cross, alongside local fire departments and community partners, has installed 1,128 smoke alarms in 459 homes, creating a safer space for 1,502 residents across the Northern Coastal California Region.

Colleagues Connect to Make Community Safer

Posted on May 3, 2026 by Dej Knuckey

Vanir team ready to head out to install smoke alarms for community members in Richmond, Calif., for Sound the Alarm. L to R: Project Directors Santiago Harris and Cymbre Potter, Construction Manager Tierra Andrews, and Senior Project Manager Laurence Maller

On a cool Saturday morning in Richmond, Calif., a group of colleagues from construction management company Vanir traded hard hats and project schedules for clipboards and smoke alarms. They were part of the American Red Cross Sound the Alarm campaign, installing free smoke alarms and sharing fire safety information in at-risk communities.

But for this team, the day was about more than just service. It was also about connection.

Making Life on the Water Safer

Posted on March 31, 2026 by Marcia Antipa

Red Cross Volunteers bring home fire safety to the floating homes of Sausalito

Catherine Lee, Ron Lau, Vincent Valenzuela, Lesley Carmichael and Claire Cannariato (L to R) prepare to install smoke alarms in floating homes

“You’re on the water. You’ve got wildlife out your window. You’ve got the sun playing off the water.”

That’s how Flo Hoylman describes living aboard a houseboat in Sausalito, Calif., just north of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge. But Flo, who serves on the board of the Sausalito Floating Homes Association, knows she and her neighbors on the water are just as susceptible to fires as any other Californians.

“We still burn. And if there was a fire, like there was in Santa Rosa, the embers would come down on us, too.”

Investing in Preparedness: Inside the CAP Bus Tour

Posted on December 29, 2025 by Pooja Klebig

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 18^th 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.

Homepage Posts — Other

No Power, No Problem: Stranded in San Francisco

Posted on December 22, 2025 by redcrossnorcalstaff

Businesses in downtown San Francisco were closed due to the power outage

By Veronica Oberholzer

I love the Christmas season and am always looking for new holiday activities. On Saturday, December 20, I took BART from my home in Oakland to the Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco to see a 2 p.m. Christmas Ballet.

The theater was a dark cocoon from the outside world during the beautiful performance. In a funny piece of foreshadowing, I thought that anything could be happening in the world outside, and we wouldn’t know about it until the show was over.

Homepage posts — Featured

Sound The Alarm: 502 Homes Made Safer Thanks to Red Cross Volunteers, Local Fire Departments and Community Partners

Posted on June 4, 2025 by Aileen Blomdal

1,357 smoke alarms installed throughout the Northern California Coastal Region in this spring

The American Red Cross responds to home fires more than any other disaster nationwide, so home fire prevention is something we take seriously. For that reason, Red Cross members, along with local fire departments and community partners, to install 1,357 free smoke alarms in 502 homes, making 1,472 residents safer from homes fires during our 2025 Sound the Alarm campaign. From April 26 – May 23, communities in Alameda, Contra Costa, Solano, Merced, San Benito, San Francisco, San Joaquin, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties were made safer thanks to free smoke alarms and home fire prevention education.

Sound the Alarm events are a critical part of the national Red Cross Home Fire Campaign which aims to reduce the number of deaths from home fires. The Home Fire Campaign has helped save 2,320 lives since its launch in October 2014 due to working smoke alarms in homes. Nationwide, volunteers and local fire departments visit neighborhoods to install free smoke alarms and share home fire prevention information with residents, including home fire escape plans. Here in the Northern California Coastal Region, volunteers and partners have installed more than 55,300 free smoke alarms and made more than 20,000 households safer since 2014, saving 32 lives reported in the Greater Bay Area.