LYCOMING COUNTY, Pa. — Buckets with smoke alarms inside them sat outside the Harvest Moon Mobile Home Park office near Linden on Friday. The American Red Cross is installing free smoke alarms in mobile homes through their nationwide Sound The Alarm program.
"It's more proactive, saving lives, educating people about fire safety, how to do a better job of planning if there's a fire in your home, how to respond, and how to exit, so we help them with fire escape plans," said Chriss Schultz, disaster program manager for the American Red Cross.
The Northeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Red Cross chose to install smoke alarms at Harvest Moon Mobile Park because the place has seen a few fires in recent years.
"In our disaster response areas, that's how we look and say, 'Oh, you know, statistically there's been a lot of fires. This is going to be a good place to go and install free smoke alarms,'" Schultz said.
"Reached out to our residents, they were absolutely thrilled to take advantage of that. On top of the fact that everything is free, but it's giving a lot of them because they are elderly and they don't have means to access services," said Kathy Waters with Pennstone Management.
The company that manages the mobile home park says it's important for each home in Harvest Moon to have a working smoke alarm and for residents to be educated about fire safety.
"Many of them, if they were ever to fall asleep or take a nap, or God forbid, something else happened to them, a medical emergency, you just never know. And all of us would experience something like that but the average person is able to get up and about and out the door safely. The elderly population, it would be more difficult," Waters said.
Staff at the American Red Cross say that springtime is a good reminder to make sure your smoke alarms are up to date and are working properly.