The Greater Rochester chapter of the Red Cross is completing a first-of-its-kind survey of mobile home communities across a 17-county section of Western New York and the Finger Lakes.
Mobile home addresses have been collected for a data base that can be accessed by emergency responders in the event of a disaster.
Red Cross spokesman Jay Bonafede says that kind of information can be crucial in the aftermath of events like the tornado that hit Central New York this week.
"Picture something like that happening here. Those could lift and move, even, a trailer so it's no longer at its physical location. We would obviously hope that the residents of that mobile home would have gotten to a safer place at that point. But then somebody might go to that location and that home is no longer there. So it's a little more difficult to track that than a standard structure."
Bonafede says the survey is about 90-percent complete. The Central New York region of the Red Cross will also participate in the project. The organization is hoping it becomes a model around the state and nation.
