Red Cross Installs 100s of Smoke Alarms at River Edge in Hastings-on-Hudson

HASTINGS-ON-HUDSON, NY — A big group of volunteers made a lot of people a lot safer Saturday, installing nearly 300 smoke alarms at the River Edge Apartments in Hastings-on-Hudson as part of the Red Cross's national Home Fire Campaign.

The Red Cross is in the middle of a 5-year program to reduce fire-related deaths and injuries in the US by 25 percent by 2020.

Nationwide, seven people die every day from a home fire, and 36 are injured, explained Joe Spaccarelli, program director for the Home Fire Preparedness Program for the Red Cross's Greater New York chapter, which has installed 20,000 smoke detectors in the metro area just in the past six months, and has been credited by the FDNY for a significant decline in serious and fatal fires in the city, where the local campaign is called GetAlarmedNYC.

This campaign is very simple and practical, he said. Red Cross volunteers go in in teams of three — a documenter, an educator and an installer.

"Education is probably an equally important component," he said. "Having the alarm is good if you know what to do with it."

That includes not only how to check the batteries, and what to do if the alarm goes off, but how to prevent some of the more common causes of home fires from candles to cooking fires.

On Saturday, there were so many volunteers, most from Hunter College's Red Cross Club, that Spaccarelli had to drive back to headquarters in NYC to pick up five more installation kits.

"That's a good problem to have," he said.

"It was an unbelievable day," said coordinator Caroline Sherwin. "We had 30+ volunteers, we installed alarms in 117 apartments."

The teams worked closely with the complex's custodial engineering staff, who helped with installations and will be the program's eyes and ears on site going forward.

As part of the Home Fire Campaign, the Red Cross asks: Can your family escape in just two minutes?

You can keep your family safe with two simple steps.

1. Practice your 2-minute drill. Make sure your family can safely escape a home fire in under 2 minutes. Use the Red Cross's Home Fire Escape Planning Sheet to plan and prepare your 2-minute drill today.
2. Test your smoke alarms monthly. Make sure you and your family are alerted as soon as a fire is detected. If the smoke alarm isn't working, change the batteries.

PHOTOS: Red Cross Installer Alex Sen; Red Cross Educator Ana Rose; Hunter College Team reviewing the checklist; Saturday's installation crews; new Red Cross VIPs, the Custodial Engineers of River Edge Condo / photo credits: Caroline Sherwin