Anheuser-Busch will deliver five additional truckloads – over 255,000 cans – of emergency drinking water to Corpus Christie, Houston, and Austin to aid Hurricane Harvey response efforts. These deliveries come after three initial truckloads were delivered to the Gulf Coast earlier this week, bringing the total number of cans provided to over 410,000.
The first truckload was sent from Anheuser-Busch’s Cartersville brewery in Georgia and delivered to the American Red Cross in Baton Rouge on Monday, August 28 with the generous help of Mockler Beverage, one of Anheuser-Busch’s wholesaler partners. The additional truckloads are scheduled to arrive at American Red Cross facilities in Arlington, Corpus Christie, Houston, and Austin in the coming days. The Texas deliveries will be made with the help of wholesaler partners Ben E. Keith, Silver Eagle, L&F Distributors, and Brown Distributing.
The Cartersville brewery halts production periodically throughout the year to prepare canned drinking water that can be quickly distributed to help American communities in need once a request is received from the Red Cross. As a result of these requests, the Cartersville brewery will pause beer production on Monday to can more clean, safe emergency drinking water.
“Putting our production and logistics strengths to work is the best way we can help in these situations” said Bill Bradley, Anheuser-Busch’s Vice President, Community Affairs. “Having successfully delivered three truckloads of clean safe drinking water, when we received the request for additional shipments of water, we were happy to be able to help. By pausing our production line to produce more emergency drinking water, we are ensuring that we are always ready to support American communities in need.”
Hurricane Harvey hit the Gulf Coast early Saturday with winds over 135 mph and devastating floods in some areas. As of Sunday, 6,100 people were in shelters prepared by the American Red Cross, and the organization expects the number to rise to at least 30,000 later in the week.
Anheuser-Busch has three facilities in Houston: one large brewery, its craft partner Karbach, and the Longhorn glass bottle facility. The three facilities together have approximately 1,100 employees and all are safe. As employee safety is the foremost and primary concern, Anheuser-Busch will continue to monitor the rain and evaluate next steps as the weather evolves.
Mr. Bradley added: “The safety of our colleagues is paramount and we are proud of the work our Houston team has done since last weekend to keep our team safe in these difficult and exceptional circumstances.”
Anheuser-Busch has a longstanding tradition of providing water and supplies to those affected by natural disasters nationwide. In 2016, Anheuser-Busch produced and shipped emergency drinking water to communities hit by natural disasters, including the California wildfires, the Louisiana floods and Hurricane Matthew. Since 1988, the St. Louis-based brewer has provided over 76 million cans of drinking water to aid disaster-stricken areas.
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