On June 01, 2021, Amazon announced the opening of its first Disaster Relief Hub in Georgia to help with the quick delivery of disaster relief supplies. Ahead of the 2021 Hurricane season, Amazon has donated and pre-positioned 500,000 emergency supplies to help relief organizations quickly respond to natural disasters across the South-Eastern U.S, the Caribbean and Central America.
Amazon has partnered with six global humanitarian aid/ relief organizations: the American Red Cross, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Direct Relief, International Medical Corps, World Central Kitchen and Save the Children; to set up its new Disaster Relief Hub that will allow a faster response to locations hit by hurricanes and other natural disasters.
The Disaster Relief Hub with a fulfilment centre space of 10,000 cubic feet will stock over half a million Amazon donated relief supplies. There will be enough supplies stocked up to fill an Amazon Air 767 cargo plane to quickly deliver critical goods when a disaster strikes.
The organizations chose the Atlanta location for setting up the new Amazon Disaster Relief Hub due to its close proximity to the areas most often hit by hurricanes. Atlanta is located just 300 miles from the Gulf Coast, 734 miles from the Bahamas, and within 1534 miles of Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands.
Amazon formed the pre-position strategy to set up its first Disaster Relief Hub by analyzing its data across four years of disaster support. The Amazon Disaster Hub quickens the disaster response by pre-analyzing the supplies they have, procuring emergency kits, consolidating and packing the supplies ready for shipment into disaster zones. Amazon’s disaster relief and response efforts leverage the eCommerce giant’s innovative technologies, vast operational excellence and global logistics network to provide fast and effective support to its community partners extending the disaster response to the most rural communities and remote areas of the United States.
Amazon’s strategy for the Disaster Relief Hub is tailored to the most common relief supplies including tarps, tents, medical equipment, water containers and filters, clothing items and kitchen supplies, that’ll be needed by its community partners to do their lifesaving work. Once the emergency supplies are dispatched Amazon works with community partners to identify other needed supplies and fills additional, unique critical needs.
Trevor Riggen, Senior Vice President of Disaster Cycle Service at the American Red Cross, said, “Amazon’s donation of critical relief supplies and advance pre-positioning efforts allows the Red Cross to stand ready to help at a moment’s notice.”
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