Beer distributor Anheuser-Busch announced Wednesday it will send an additional 255,000 cans of emergency drinking water to Red Cross facilities in Houston, Corpus Christi, and Austin, Texas, as residents and responders recover from the storm formerly known as Hurricane Harvey.
On Monday, Anheuser-Busch said it was sending 155,000 cans of drinking water to Baton Rouge, La., and Arlington, Texas. A total of 410,000 cans of water have been produced by the Georgia facility for the flood victims affected by the Category 4 hurricane. At least 30,000 people are estimated to be living in Red Cross shelters in the affected region.
“Putting our production and logistics strengths to work is the best way we can help in these situations,” Bill Bradley, Anheuser-Busch’s vice president of community affairs, said in a statement Wednesday. “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.”
Anheuser-Busch will again pause beer production at its Cartersville, Ga., brewery again on Monday so that it can produce more water for a possible third installment.
“We have an excess of 400 independent distributors throughout the U.S. [that] allow us to do this,” Bradley said. “It would be so much more difficult to do it without them at the local level.”
The Cartersville brewery produces canned water periodically throughout the year to have a stash on hand in case of emergencies.
“Since 1988 we have donated an excess of 76 million cans of clean drinking water,” Bradley told NBC’s “Today” on Monday. “The Cartersville location is our designated brewery for the emergency water program — it’s something we’re very proud of.”
Anheuser-Busch credited its wholesale partners — Mockler Beverage, Ben E. Keith, Silver Eagle, L&F Distributors, and Brown Distributing — with making this effort possible.
The company said none of its 1,100 employees at its three Houston facilities were among those killed as a result of the storm.
