The Red Flag Warning is on the news again. You glance at it, think about your father's house up the canyon or out past the 101, and tell yourself he'll be fine. He has lived there thirty years. He knows the roads.

Here is the question I would ask instead: if an evacuation alert went out at two in the morning, who would hear it, who would understand it, and who would be behind the wheel ten minutes later? If the honest answer to all three is "Dad, by himself," he does not have a plan. He has a hope.

Santa Ana season is starting. This is the week to fix that, while the air is still calm and nobody is panicking.

The warning is the one written for your parent

Most families think the moment to leave is the evacuation order. For an older adult, it usually isn't. Los Angeles County's own emergency guidance says that when an evacuation warning is issued, those who "require additional time to evacuate, including individuals with access or functional needs," should leave now (LA County Emergency).

Read that sentence again with your parent in mind. A walker, a slow morning, hearing aids on the nightstand, a medication routine, a cat that hides — every one of those is "additional time." The warning is not a heads-up for your father. It is his order.

This is not a theoretical group, either. When CBS News analyzed census data after the January 2025 fires, it found that about 21% of residents in the Eaton Fire zone and about 26% of those affected by the Palisades Fire were over 65 (CBS News). In both fire zones, older adults were not the edge case. They were roughly one resident in every four or five.

Step one: find the zone, and write it on paper

Evacuation alerts in Los Angeles and Ventura counties are issued by zone, not by street name. If your parent doesn't know their zone, an alert that says "Zone such-and-such is under a warning" means nothing to them.

  • Enter your parent's address in Genasys Protect, the map both counties point residents to. It shows the zone name.
  • Look up your own address too, and the address of anyone who might be the ride.
  • Write the zone on an index card and tape it somewhere your parent actually looks — the refrigerator, the inside of the front door, next to the landline. A zone saved in your phone does not help at 2 a.m. in their house.

Step two: sign them up, and sign yourself up for their address

These systems are opt-in. Nobody is enrolled automatically, and a phone that isn't registered won't get the call.

  • Los Angeles County: Alert LA County sends emergency notices by text, email or phone call. The county suggests saving its alert phone numbers as contacts once you register, so you recognize the call when it comes.
  • City of Los Angeles: NotifyLA is the city's own system, separate from the county's.
  • Ventura County: VC Alert lets you register for alerts by phone, text or email, including for a loved one's location.

That last part is the one families skip. Register your parent's address to your phone as well as theirs. If your mother sleeps with her hearing aids out and her cell phone charging in the kitchen, you may be the only person who actually hears the alert. Decide now what you do when that happens: you call, and if she doesn't pick up, the neighbor with the spare key knocks.

If your parent still has a landline, ask whether it's registered too. For many people in their eighties, that is the phone they answer.

Step three: everything in the house that needs a plug

A fire doesn't have to reach the street to change your parent's day. When wind and dry conditions line up, Southern California Edison, the utility for much of the Westside outside the City of Los Angeles and most of Ventura County, can cut power ahead of time in what it calls a Public Safety Power Shutoff. Walk through your parent's house and list everything that stops working when the power does:

  • A power lift recliner or an adjustable bed that gets stuck in one position.
  • A stairlift.
  • The electric garage door, which is also, for a lot of older adults, the only way the car gets out. Show your parent where the manual release cord is, and check whether they can actually pull it.
  • Cordless phones, which go dead with the power. Keep one corded phone or a charged cell phone.
  • Any medical equipment that plugs in. Ask the prescribing provider or the equipment supplier how long it runs on battery and what the backup plan is.

If your parent relies on powered medical equipment and is an SCE customer, look at the Medical Baseline Allowance program. SCE says it has no income limits, requires a qualified medical practitioner to sign the application, and gives enrolled customers advance notice of Public Safety Power Shutoffs. Some Medical Baseline customers who live in high fire-risk areas and meet SCE's other criteria can also get a free portable backup battery through its Critical Care Backup Battery program. If your parent is an LADWP customer instead, call LADWP and ask what it offers for customers who use medical equipment.

Step four: the bag, packed for this person

Generic emergency-kit lists are written for a household of healthy adults. Your parent's bag should be built around what your parent can't go a day without. Ready.gov's guidance for older adults is a good starting point. It covers medicines, medical supplies, batteries and chargers, copies of Medicare, Medicaid and other insurance cards, and a plan for bringing wheelchairs, walkers and other mobility aids.

Some things I would add after walking into a lot of homes:

  • A current medication list on paper, with doses and the prescriber's name. The pill bottles may not make it into the car. The list should.
  • Glasses, hearing aids and their charger or spare batteries. An evacuation center is loud and confusing. A parent who can't see or hear well there will look far more confused than they are.
  • A phone charger that works in the car.
  • A few days of clothes, including the shoes they actually walk safely in, not the slippers by the bed.
  • A card with your name and number in large print, in case your parent ends up somewhere you aren't.

Pack it now, put it by the door or in the trunk, and put a note on the calendar to check it when the clocks change.

Step five: name the driver

This is the part that separates a real plan from a list. Ready.gov tells older adults to build a support network of family, friends and others who can help in an emergency. Make that concrete. Who is the ride? Not "one of us." A name.

  • If your parent no longer drives, or shouldn't drive at night or in smoke, the driver cannot be your parent.
  • If you live forty minutes away, you are not the first ride. You are the backup. The first ride is usually a neighbor.
  • Have the conversation with that neighbor now, in daylight. Give them a key, your number and the zone name. Most people say yes when asked plainly. Almost nobody volunteers without being asked.

The ten-minute test

Once it's all in place, try it once. Pick a calm afternoon and ask your parent to pretend a warning just came in. Time it. Can they find the bag, put on real shoes, gather the medication list, lock the door and be ready at the curb in ten minutes? Can the neighbor get there?

Most families find out something they didn't expect: the walker doesn't fit in the neighbor's car, or the cat carrier is in the garage rafters, or Mom can't pull the garage door release. Better to find that out on a Tuesday in September than on a windy night.

At CarePali we provide non-medical, in-home help with daily living across the Westside of Los Angeles and coastal Ventura County. A lot of that help is unglamorous: keeping the medication list current, making sure the hearing aids are charged, noticing that the go-bag has been raided for its batteries. If you'd like a second set of eyes on your parent's home before the winds pick up, call us at (310) 818-3217 or write to reach@carepali.com.