If you're unfortunate enough to be in the path of a hurricane, Amazon has a plan to help
Yesterday we celebrated Memorial Day, and this year it’s followed immediately by a more infamous day. June 1 of each year marks the start of hurricane season in the Atlantic and Pacific basins. It runs through December 1, but remember, mother nature doesn’t always follow our schedules and directions -- one hurricane already formed in mid-May.
Most don’t reach land and those that do frequently amount to little, but then you also have the likes of Katrina or Sandy that can prove devastating. Maria knocked out power for months in Puerto Rico in 2017.
Thankfully Amazon has a plan to help people out, taking on the US government’s vaunted (by them) FEMA. How will it take on the agency? With its first official Disaster Relief Hub, located near Atlanta.
Amazon says this hub will contain "over a half a million Amazon-donated relief supplies in 10,000 cubic feet of fulfillment center space -- enough to fill an Amazon Air 767 cargo plane and immediately provide critical supplies when a disaster strikes".
The company touts the central location of its new hub, just 310 miles from the Gulf Coast, 734 miles from the Bahamas, which means it can aid the rest of the Caribbean, as well as central America.
"Our disaster relief and response team is partnering with global humanitarian relief organizations to leverage Amazon’s scale to help improve response time to large-scale natural disasters around the world," said Alicia Boler Davis, vice president of Global Customer Fulfillment at Amazon. "Our expertise in logistics and operations allows us to be nimble, fast, and effective. We’ve created the Disaster Relief Hub in metro Atlanta to provide rapid relief when it’s needed most by donating and delivering hundreds of thousands of emergency aid supplies, including shelter materials like tents and tarps, hygiene items, and medical equipment."
The Disaster Relief Hub will initially support six global humanitarian aid organizations: the American Red Cross, Direct Relief, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, International Medical Corps, Save the Children, and World Central Kitchen.