Susie Johnson’s 30 Years of Disaster Action Team Service

Two American Red Cross volunteers are at a table inside a building near a window, with notebooks, a phone, and a travel mug visible.

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Susie Johnson, a longtime American Red Cross Disaster Action Team volunteer, helps provide comfort, support, and essential resources to families affected by local disasters. For more than 30 years, she has helped ensure no one faces emergencies alone.

A group of American Red Cross volunteers sit and stand behind a table outdoors under a canopy, with sign-in sheets and materials in front of them.

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Susie Johnson, a longtime American Red Cross Disaster Action Team volunteer, helps provide comfort, support, and essential resources to families affected by local disasters. For more than 30 years, she has helped ensure no one faces emergencies alone.

Four American Red Cross volunteers gather around a table indoors near a decorated holiday tree, with forms, pens, and event materials spread out in front of them.

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Susie Johnson, a longtime American Red Cross Disaster Action Team volunteer, helps provide comfort, support, and essential resources to families affected by local disasters. For more than 30 years, she has helped ensure no one faces emergencies alone.

Two American Red Cross volunteers pose together indoors in front of a screen displaying “Thanks For Giving” with fall-themed graphics.

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Susie Johnson, a longtime American Red Cross Disaster Action Team volunteer, helps provide comfort, support, and essential resources to families affected by local disasters. For more than 30 years, she has helped ensure no one faces emergencies alone.

May 13, 2026

By Joe Gutierrez, American Red Cross volunteer

This year marks a milestone for the American Red Cross. Sixty years ago, the Red Cross created Disaster Action Teams (DAT) to help people during local disasters by providing relief on an on-call basis. Since 1964, specially trained DAT volunteers have responded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to deliver immediate relief, emotional support, and long-term recovery resources to their community. Their mission is simple and powerful: to make sure that families never face disasters alone.

Many of those calls are single-family and multi-family home fires, flooding and other local emergencies that have displaced individuals and families. During these responses, DAT teams provide relief services, including a listening ear and supplies such as free blankets, comfort kits, food and temporary shelter assistance.

One of those DAT volunteers is Susie Johnson, who for more than 30 years has served in the Red Cross Orange County Chapter.

She credits her grandmother for instilling the value of service in her and her brothers from a very young age. Susie said she chose the Red Cross “because I saw how they are committed to serving people respective of our differences.”

Susie, who joined at the age of 43, became a DAT volunteer and, in February 1995, a DAT supervisor.

“As a supervisor, I communicate with the Duty Officer during a DAT response, keeping them updated on situations in the field to ensure the immediate needs of all clients are addressed; liaise with the fire department on scene and provide guidance to other DAT members, both experienced and new,” she added.

Much has changed since she first joined DAT, as technology has transformed how the responders function.

“When I started, DAT used to be all paper forms and vouchers,” said Susie. “We were assigned to an incident within the areas we lived, we had a Thomas Brothers Guide or a map, and you needed to carry change to make phone calls.”

But despite using cellphones, laptops, the internet and other innovations and modernizations, Susie said one thing about DAT that hasn’t changed – helping people in disaster situations.

“I enjoy knowing we are helping people on one of the most difficult days they may have, and we make a positive difference,” Susie said.

In her more than 30 years serving on DAT, one call still stands out. It is her first DAT call, which was to an apartment complex fire in her very own town of Garden Grove.

“It looked like chaos, the middle of the night, with fire trucks everywhere; there were so many people on scene and a lady with a dog someone had lost due to the fire,” Susie said. “I was so nervous. Then I found the rest of the DAT team and the supervisor, who said this is what we will do and outlined the plan.”

The responders got to work interviewing and opening cases for those impacted, providing resources for shelter and food, and handing out comfort kits and blankets.

“My first interview was with a young couple. They lost everything and were overwhelmed, but thankful to the Red Cross for being there. That was my first DAT hug,” Susie said. “I still think of those families when I drive by that complex all these years later.”

As a DAT supervisor with a vast amount of experience in dealing with disaster situations, Susie said she would advise her fellow volunteers, those with experience and new colleagues, not to forget why they serve in the Red Cross. 

“Sometimes, we are the first time people have heard of the Red Cross or that we are a volunteer-led organization. Be a good example of the Red Cross,” she said. “Give clients the compassion and respect you'd want someone to give to your family member in the same situation.”

For potential Red Cross volunteers, she would tell them about the many opportunities available to them.

“Try it; there is something for everyone in the Red Cross. If getting up in the middle of the night does not work for you, try something else. Reunification, procurement, transportation, warehousing, staffing, training, public affairs or finance,” Susie said. “There are so many other activities that support the clients. The reward is finding something that fulfills you.”

Learn more about volunteering for the Disaster Action Team or other positions at redcross.org/volunteer.