American Red Cross to Visit Clearwater Mobile Home Parks

From American Red Cross Tampa Bay Chapter:

The American Red Cross Tampa Bay Chapter will be visiting Clearwater mobile home parks as part of its Home Fire Campaign to teach people how to be prepared for home fires and to install smoke alarms where needed. Seven times a day, someone in this country dies in a home fire. Countless others suffer injuries. To combat these tragic statistics, the Red Cross has launched a nationwide campaign to reduce the number of deaths and injuries due to home fires by 25 percent by the end of 2019. The Home Fire Campaign is happening all over the country and involves Red Cross workers joining with local fire departments and community groups to visit neighborhoods at high risk for fires. Those visits include educating people about fire safety through door-to-door visits and installation of smoke alarms in some of these neighborhoods.

The Red Cross will be going through the Boulevard Mobile Home Estates, located at 2266 Gulf To Bay Blvd., on Saturday, July 16, starting at 9 a.m., to install smoke alarms in homes that need them and teach people about what to do now in case a fire breaks out in their home. Joining the Red Cross will be the Church of Scientology Disasters Services volunteers. Volunteers will meet at 8:30 a.m. at the Red Cross Clearwater office, located at 2481 Sunset Point Rd.

"Installing smoke alarms cuts the risk of someone dying from a home fire in half, so we're joining with groups from across our community to install smoke alarms," said Linda Jorge Carbone, CEO of the Central Florida Region and executive director of the Tampa Bay Chapter. "We also will be teaching people how to be safe should they have a home fire."

The Red Cross is asking everyone to take two simple steps that can save lives: check their existing smoke alarms and practice fire drills at home.

There are several things families and individuals can do to increase their chances of surviving a fire. If someone doesn't have smoke alarms, install them. At a minimum, put one on every level of the home, inside bedrooms and outside sleeping areas. Local building codes vary, and there may be additional requirements where someone lives. If someone does have alarms, test them today. If they don't work, replace them. Make sure that everyone in the family knows how to get out of every room and how to get out of the home in less than two minutes. Practice that plan. What's the household's escape time?

The Red Cross responds to nearly 66,000 disasters each year in the U.S., and the vast majority of those are home fires. In Hillsborough and Pinellas counties, the Red Cross assisted 465 families that had suffered a home fire or other disaster last year. People can help by donating online to Red Cross Disaster Relief, calling 1-800-RED CROSS or texting the word REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation. Donations to disaster relief will be used to prepare for, respond to and help peopler ecover from disasters big and small. We respond to nearly 66,000 disasters every year, from home fires to hurricanes and more. Learn more about how disaster relief donations have helped people affected by previous disasters, including home fires.

The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters, supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood, teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission.

Further information is available through the American Red Cross website.