Updated: March 9
February's snowstorm and record-low temperatures left millions of people in Texas and Mississippi without safe drinking water, food, and power. Our thoughts are with those affected by the winter storm.
In response, Amazon has donated over 1 million bottles of water—totaling 28 truckloads—to help local communities in Texas and Mississippi during the water shortages.
The first 290,000 donated bottles of water were distributed to the American Red Cross Shelter at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Georgetown, the Henry B. González Convention Center in San Antonio, and the Houston Food Bank. Amazon has delivered more than 977,000 additional bottles of water to Feeding America's network of Texas food banks, World Central Kitchen, ChildFund International, and other organizations across Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Llano, and Brazos Valley. Amazon also donated over 36,000 bottles of water to the city of Jackson, Mississippi.
Amazon has teamed up with Good360 and community relief centers throughout Texas to donate and deliver thousands of hand warmers, hygiene products, clothing, blankets, and other supplies to help people displaced by the storm.
Amazon Web Services' disaster response team activated employee volunteers to support mapping efforts alongside the nonprofit Information Technology Disaster Resource Center. Volunteers searched for available types of support (e.g., shelter, warming centers, food, water) and mapped the resources to help citizens and public officials better understand the affected areas (e.g., counties affected by boil notices) and resources available. This map has been shared with state and local organizations to assist the response.
Amazon is in continuous communication with our community nonprofit partners and local officials to identify the most effective ways Amazon can provide and deliver resources to aid relief and recovery efforts.
Since 2017, Amazon has donated more than 13.67 million relief items in response to 55 natural disasters around the world. Stay up to date on Amazon's latest disaster relief efforts by following @AmazonNews on Twitter.
About Amazon's Disaster Relief and Response
Amazon's disaster relief and response efforts leverage Amazon's vast operational excellence, innovative technologies, and worldwide logistics network to provide fast and effective support to worldwide operations fighting large-scale natural disasters. Amazon has filled cargo jets and shipped truckloads of Amazon-donated items for communities ravaged by hurricanes, sent solar-powered lights to people living without power after tsunamis, enabled customers to easily donate products and cash on Amazon.com, and helped governments and nonprofits expedite response efforts at scale through our AWS cloud services.
