Month: February 2014

~Written by Caroline Nilsson, Volunteer for the American Red Cross of Northeastern California~

It was 6 PM on Friday night when my cell phone rang.  Pat Day’s voice was on the line. 

“You won’t believe it,” she said.  “You know that explosion that happened a couple of days ago?  Well, they’ve found explosives in the house.  They’re evacuating the area.  We need to open a shelter.”

I’d been expecting a call.  Amidst the driest winter in years, the rain had finally begun to fall on our Northeastern California town, and rain in Redding often means snow in the mountains.  I’d already gotten a heads-up that we might need to open a shelter in Siskiyou if the storms were bad.  We hadn’t been expecting explosives. Continue reading Volunteer Perspective – Red Cross Response to Shasta County Emergency